TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE BUDGET.
THE Budget is a timid affair. If the Government really expect war,—which, however, we must do Sir Stafford Northcote the justice of saying that he himself does not expect, as he thinks we have been "wise in time,"—it is worse than a timid affair, almost a cowardly affair. To throw the addi- tional burden caused by this six millions vote over two years is at the best not courageous. But to do so if the Government have any serious reason to believe that they may soon have to lay a much heavier burden on the country, would be utterly wanting in proper public spirit. We suppose we must give Sir Stafford Northcote full credit for really expecting peace. He says he expects it ; and he is not a man to say what he does not believe. Still, even assuming that he thinks peace decidedly more probable than war, it would not, we think, have diminished, but rather increased the hope of peace, if he had frankly asked the House of Commons to discharge in one year the special liabilities which we have contracted or bound ourselves to contract. As regards the external effect of such a policy,—it would, at least, have shown both our resources, and also our resolution to bear the full burden of our own purposes. As regards the internal effect of such a policy, it would, we think, be equally good. If England is in any danger of war, she should make up her mind, if war comes, to go to war in earnest. And if she is even contemplating going to war in earnest, she cannot realise too soon a foretaste of what a war expenditure really means. It is a very mild foretaste of that expenditure to provide within the year for the extra outlay sanctioned since the year began ; and in our opinion, Sir Stafford North- cote would have done more wisely to give her that foretaste, without any drawbacks. It may be supposed that we say this in the hope that England would be disgusted by such burdens, and rendered less disposed for war. But we are very far in- deed from entertaining any such impression. Taxation is very disagreeable, but it never yet kept England back from war when once the war-spirit was upon her; and it never will. Our wish to see the entire taxation already sanctioned, or at least virtually sanctioned,—for of course only the part of it which belonged to the last financial year is as yet sanctioned,—obtained within the year, is simply due to the belief that if we skulk meeting honestly so trivial a burden as this, before we are at war, the danger is that when we are at war,—if we are to be at war, —we shall follow the bad precedent set, and raise far too large a proportion of our resources in the form of borrowings, and far too little in the form of increased taxation. As it is, the Chancellor of the Exchequer cancels debt with one hand, while he incurs it (for a year at least) with the other. That is a bad beginning of what may be a very long journey on the same road. We heartily concur with Sir John Lubbock in thinking that there was no merit at all in not touching the £28,000,000 devoted to the payments on the Debt and the reduction of it, if we are to set off against that austere abstinence, the new creation of debt which it would be easily in our power to discharge.
This is the first and most important criticism we have to pass on the Budget,—that in any case, it is timid, and unless in the opinion of the Government the fear of war is minute in the extreme, it is more than timid, almost cowardly. But the Budget has one other great defect. It is certainly not desirable that in adding to our burdens for the sake of what is certainly a popular, though we cannot admit it to be a national, object, and not in any sense a gratification to a class, four-fifths of those burdens should be borne by the classes liable to Income-tax, and only one-fifth by the whole people. Yet this is Sir Stafford North- cote's proposal. For the coming year he proposes to obtain £3,000,000 from the payers of Income-tax, and only £750,000 from the consumers of tobacco, who are, we suppose, the male population generally. And this is especially undesirable after the change of last year to which Sir Stafford Northcote himself referred,—we allude to the exemption from the income-tax of the most needy persons liable to it. We heartily approved of those exemptions, as a very just and needful rectification of the boundary between those who have luxuries out of which they could spare something with no great sacrifice, and those who have no luxuries worthy of the name,—those, the whole of whose expenditure is so far necessary, that it cannot be re- stricted without severe pinching. But then we approved of
those exemptions, on the understanding which had for some time back been arrived at, that where additional taxation is needful, it should be divided pretty evenly between the taxation that presses exclusively on the well-to-do, and taxation which presses equally on all. It is a most dangerous thing to let the people imagine that they may adopt any policy they like, and that the upper and middle-classes will always pay for it. Especially is• this dangerous in the case of war. The nation realises already but too loosely what its responsibility for war is, and the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer fosters that looseness when he proposes to throw eighty per cent. of a burden which, if it is not for war, is at all events most eagerly demanded by the war' party, on to the well-to-do, and only twenty per cent. of it on to any article through which the people in general will be made to feel its screw. If Sir Stafford Northcote had limited himself to the sum he at present proposes to raise, he should have advanced the Income-tax only by one penny, and obtained the rest either by the old registration duty on corn, or by additional taxation of spirits. It would have been far more courageous and more worthy of him, how- ever, to have imposed 2d. on the Income-tax, as he is now- doing, but to have raised at least another million or a million and a half, by indirect taxation pressing on the general com- munity, so as to discharge within the year the whole burden caused by the Supplementary Estimates.
There is not much to say on the minor details of the Budget. The readjustment of the Inhabited House Duty, and the remission of Income-tax "so far as to cover the depre- ciation of machinery, are both of them wise and praiseworthy steps. We have some doubts of the large addition to the dog-tax. That a much more rigid enforcement of the tax was desirable, we have no doubt. But we have great doubts whether that will really be possible with a raised duty. The police in our rural districts are by no means too- effective at present ; and they will be even less so, if they are to be made the means of enforcing a tax which will,. in fact, deny to the really poor the means of keeping a dog. Policemen who " inform" on their friends and neigh- bours, lose a great deal of their efficiency ; and as a matter of fact, they very seldom choose to do so. We believe, therefore, that the dog-tax, in order to be really enforced,—which is most desirable, on every account,—should have been lowered, not raised. And we fear that the effect of the step taken will be to render the collection of the duty very much less efficient than formerly. No one will like to force a poor man either to drown a dog to which he is heartily attached, or to pay a sum which he is seldom able to command. The House of Commons seemed to think the raising of the duty a sovereign remedy against hydrophobia. We fear it may, on the contrary, lead to the existence of a much larger number of dogs denied by their real owners when chal- lenged, but which the police will, nevertheless, seldom choose
to observe and destroy. If that should prove to be so,. then, instead of diminishing the number of dogs amongst us, the new tax will only diminish the sense of responsibility attaching to their ownership,—which is precisely what we want to avoid.
On the whole, the Budget has the merit of simplicity ; but the two demerits of not providing either adequately or justly for the burdens of the year. For a policy which, whether good or bad, is of immense moment to the peace of the world, we ought to pay promptly and equally,—equally, that is, measuring by that standard of equality which has now- received the sanction of our best financiers on both sides of the House. Sir Stafford Northcote's Budget fails, when tried by either of these conditions.
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