Mr. Goschen cannot be excelled, and is not to be
easily rivalled, as a Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but unquestionably he does not study the art of putting his statement into a form which, as the enthusiastic " crammer " remarked concerning a happy proof of a physical theorem, "can be written out at examinations." We defy an accountant to get any complete and detailed statement of the principal estimates of revenue and expenditure, under the usual heads, out of his wise and thoughtful Budget speech. The surplus for the past year was, be stated, 21,756,000, and as last year he had estimated for only a surplus of 2233,000, and as, moreover, he had been compelled to make large supplementary grants, for Ireland, for the Volunteers, for the Post Office and Telegraphs, that is a very satisfactory result, only obtained from the combination of an elastic revenue with considerable savings in expenditure. The elasticity in the revenue was, again, chiefly due to the rush to alcohol, which accounts for no less than 2901,000. The increase on tobacco also was more than double what Mr. Gosehen had estimated, and he stated that he reckoned the number of pipes smoked last year as larger by thirty-six millions than the number smoked the year before. In other words, every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom might have smoked one pipe more than was smoked in the previous year. The Customs duties on other articles of con- sumption, such as tea and currants, showed a satisfactory increase ; but the Stamp-duties fell somewhat below the mark, owing to the collapse of speculation.
