On Thursday night the Chancellor of the Exchequer explained his
Budget to the House of Commons. It was an original one in its way, because it proposed no change at all in the taxes, neither remissions nor additions. A statuesque budget is clearly a novelty, and Sir Stafford Northcote remaining fixed in the attitude of last year is clearly a statuesque vision. His last Estimates—those for the year just expired—were very near the mark. He had estimated the Revenue at £78,412,000. The actual revenue had proved £78,565,036, or an increase on the estimate of £153,036. He had estimated the Expenditure at £78,043,845, and it had turned out £78,125,227, or 181,382 more than was estimated. On the whole, therefore, the anticipated surplus, which was estimated at about £368,000, had swelled into £439,809, say £440,000,—(but the Chancellor of the Exchequer called it 1443,000, for some reason the nature of which we cannot divine). He showed that there had been a very great falling-off in the estimated revenue for Customs, and also in the spirit duties under the head of "Excise," though accidental accessions to the Malt duty had more than neutralised this deficiency ; and that the Stamps duty had also fallen off, while in the other departments there had been some excess. On the whole, the past year had very respectably verified his predictions.
