This disposition left the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the
surplus of £5,492,000, as before. "What was he to do with all this money ? " He had had plenty of advice. The various depu- tations he had received had amongst them proposed to him to sweep away about £55,000,000 out of £66,000,000 of disposable revenue. But the advice had not been of great use to him. Again, the Government had not had time to go into great financial questions, such as the abolition or the reform of the income-tax, or the recast of the scheme of local taxation. Under these circumstances, in spite of the grandeur of the financial opportunity, it was necessary to propose a somewhat temporising Budget, and to this Sir Stafford North- cote had reluctantly made up his mind. He proposed to do some- thing safe towards relieving local taxation, first by contributing 4s. a head per week to the support of lunatics in county asylums, next by raising the subvention to the rate which pays the police from one quarter to one-half, and finally by paying rates on the whole property of Government. Again, he proposed to abolish the now small and therefore unremunerative sugar duties, which would tend to make England a great mercantile emporium for the sugar trade ; to take a penny off the income-tax, and to abolish altogether the horse duty, which, in spite of exemptions, is vexatious to trades- men and farmers, and tends to interfere with horse-breeding, an unfortunate result in a time of scarcity.
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