Mr. Gladstone explained his thirteenth Budget,—the third which he has
brought forward since the formation of the present Administration,—on Monday night. It was not possible, in a Session of which so much time has already been wasted, to make it a great budget. The County Govern- ment Bill is to be postponed, and the financial arrangements which would have been necessary to provide for the new system of County Government are necessarily postponed too. As re- gards the past year, the estimates presented a year ago (after being corrected, of coarse, for the small addition made to the Customs duty on foreign spirits, for the addition to Probate duties, and the penny taken off the Income-tax) compare as follows with the actual yield of the past year :—
ESTIMATES, 1881.2. ACTUAL RECEIPTS.
Customs ... £19,180,000 £19,287,000
Excise . . ... 27,410,000
27,210,000 Stamps ... ... 12,290,000 12,260,000 Land Tax and House Duty 2,760,000 2,725,000 Income Tax ... ... 9,540,000 9,945,000 Post Office ... 6,800,000 7,000,000 Telegraphs ... ... 1,600,000 1,630,000 Crown Lands ... ... 390,000 380,000 Interest on advances ... 1,200,000 1,219,000 Miscellaneous ... ... 3,900,000 4,136,000
£85,100,000 ... £85,822,000
thus showing an increase of revenue of £722,000 above the estimate. Of the Taxes proper, however, as distinguished from the earning Departments, only the Income-tax has displayed remarkable elasticity. The expenditure for the year, originally estimated at £84,704,000, but increased by supplementary estimates up to £86,190,000, had fallen short of this last sum, and only reached £85,472,000. As the actual revenue was £85,822,000, the surplus for the past year was £350,000. The actual expenditure of the past year was £2,365,000 over that of the previous year, the increase being partly due to the increased expenditure on the Transvaal war, partly to the Education vote, and partly to the special costs of the Irish Government.
