NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. G 0 SCHEN'S Budget speech was a remarkable perform- ance. He spoke with the utmost animation for two hours and three-quarters, and rather apologised to the Committee for not speaking all night. Never was a man so completely in his element. He showed most elaborately that there is no real elasticity in the revenue, that the only classes really prosperous are the traders who make something under a thousand a year, though they and the Companies to which they belong have been really making gains. Indulgence in alcoholic drinks may be falling off from moral reasons; but there is no branch of the revenue which at all promises to make up at present for this falling-off. The balk of the community are not, indeed, descending to lower standards of comfort ; most of them are living as well as formerly, but they are not living to much on duty-paying commodities. The clauses that consume luxuries are economising severely on all sides. The assessed duties are falling off. The Income-tax, so far as it is paid by the rich, is falling off. The Income-tax of the farmers is falling off. Mr. Goschen held that since 1874 the revenue had not only ceased to advance by leaps and bounds, but had shown signs of coming to a decided standstill. And he argued, therefore, that we have no right to be making such efforts for the payment of the Debt as cramp the producing classes, though Sir Stafford Northcote could amply justify such efforts in 1874.
