Mr. Goschen on Wednesday made a most powerful and instructive
speech at Croydon, in the first half of which he pointed out that the Gladstonians, after accepting and admiring the County Government Bill, had veered round, and found that they must attack it upon details. He believed that the
cause of that change of front was that they expected Con- servatives and Unionists to quarrel over the Bill, and finding that hope disappointed, they determined, as one of them admitted, to indulge in a little obstruction. Mr. Stansfeld even, who thought the Bill so good that he wished he had been its author, had now found out that the Bill was not what he had fancied,—was, in fact, not a Radical measure at all, but "a Tory measure with a democratic veneer." Mr. Goschen then defended his Budget from the charge of being drawn in the interest of the classes. He had relieved the taxpayer by reducing interest and paying off debt, and he had laid no tax of any kind upon the lower-class consumer. The tax upon horses and wheels is not an Imperial tax at all, and does not affect the Treasury, being, as it is, a mere alterna- tive to ordinary rates. He admitted that he was looking round for new taxes, for we were relying upon too few, and forgetting that taxes were not merely imposts, but sources of power, which enabled us to administer and to defend the country.
