The chief interest of the Budget statement turned, however, on
Mr. Gladstone's demonstration of the sluggish condition of the Revenue, and its causes. Mr. Gladstone showed that the improvement in the yield of the taxes in this last year,—taxes, as distinguished from the earning Departments,—was about £813,000 (on a total of somewhere about £70,400,000), after making all the corrections requisite to compare the two years properly ; and he remarked that that was almost exactly the increase which might be ascribed to the increase of population, —namely, something over 1 per cent. He did not regard this as showing at all an elastic revenue, but, at the same time, there was a favourable element in the explanation. It was pretty certain that the revenue derived from duties on alcoholic drink had diminished, and this in spite of the increase in popu- lation. The revenue from these sources in 1867-8 was £23,001,000; in 1874-5, it had risen to 31,029,000; in 1881-2, it had gone back to £28,444,000, and this in the face of a steady increase in the deposits of both the old Savings' Banks and the Post-office Savings Banks. The curious thing was that, though the yield of the tea duties had greatly increased, the yield of the coffee, cocoa, and chicory duties had declined,—and as the coffee-houses are supposed to take the place of beer-houses, this decline was puzzling. Mr. Gladstone attributed it to the very great adulteration of coffee by materials other than chicory. But may it not also be that, even in the coffee-houses, tea is very much more used than Mr. Gladstone supposes ?
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