THE BUDGET.
THE Irish Irreconcilables will have the satisfaction of think- ing that they have exerted even more influence than the most sanguine among them could have conceived, in troubling the financial prosperity of the United Kingdom. Not only has the state of Ireland added very greatly indeed to the ex- penditure of the United Kingdom, but it has so drained the legislative resources of Parliament, that a great Budget has become impossible even to the greatest of English financiers, because there is not the remotest possibility of finding time for the discussions which a great Budget must involve. The County Government Bill is again postponed, and with it the recast of the financial schemes for local taxation. The Suc- cession duties are left untouched, because there is not time to touch them. Mr. Gladstone has to reproach his country with the petty results of its efforts to pay off its great Debt, and to point to the gigantic strides made by the United States in the same direction, in spite of the mischievous protective system by which the vast inherent elasticity of their resources is shackled. True, lest we should despair too easily, he also points to the much more serious condition of France, which is now spending threefold what she spent fifty years ago, and half as much again as we spend even now. But still, the sort of encouragement which may be derived from observing that we are not as bad as some of our neighbours is of a very limited kind. Besides, amongst the Irish Members who take delight in multiplying the diffi-
culties in the career of -the United Kingdom, there must be some who will not, perhaps, quite despair that before another decade is over, they may yet manage to bring our expenditure a good deal nearer to the French level, and to dissipate completely all the dreams of financial reform which the most gifted of financiers has dared to in- dulge. It is hardly of any use to staunch the wounds inflicted by Afghan and African wars, while the Irish demands on the legislative, administrative, and financial resources of the British people go on steadily increasing at the same oppressive rate.
However, the Budget statement, closely examined, is not so cheerless as it at first seems. It does bear the clearest evidence of the turn in the tide as regards national prosperity; and not only so, bat there is apparently good reason to think that one reason why the turn in the tide is less conspicuous than it otherwise would be, is that both the middle and the lower classes are spending less on mischievous luxuries than they used to do, and investing more carefully in profitable undertakings. The elasticity of the Income-tax, which has yielded in the year £400,000 more than the Inland Revenue had expected, is the surest sign we could have of the turn in the tide of commercial prosperity. In his two previous Budgets, Mr. Gladstone insisted on the evidence that every penny in the tax produced no more,—possibly, perhaps, rather less,—than it once did, as the clearest indication that our prosperity was not on the increase. The decided rise in the yield of each penny in this last year is a very favourable sign, and it is all the more favourable because it is accompanied by that curious symptom, the diminishing yield of the wine duties, on which Mr. Gladstone commented. Ever since 1874-5, the close of the time of inflation, the yield of the wine duties has declined, and declined, says Mr. Gladstone, in a much greater proportion than the yield of the alcoholic duties in general. Even the total yield of the alcoholic duties has fallen from £31,029,000 to about £28,500,000, or about one-eighth ; but in the same time, the yield of the duty on wine fell from £1,719,000 to £1,366,000, or more than one-fifth. In other words, though the earnings of the middle-class have taken the turn, and are increasing, they are spending less on this certainly not very beneficial luxury than they have spent for more than ten years back. Nor is it likely that they are spending more on still worse forms of these luxuries, for as the total yield of the revenue from alcoholic drink has diminished, and is diminishing, and it is certain that the great mass of the population are receiving better wages than they did three years ago, the chances certainly are that every section of the people is reducing its expenditure on these too often pernicious enjoyments. And not only is the middle-class both doing a more profitable business than it was doing some years ago, and showing less disposition to spend its income extrava- gantly ; but the working-class besides getting better wages than they got in 1879, are saving considerably more than they saved in the most prosperous of the prosperous years which preceded the reaction ; and all this has happened in spite of very bad harvests, and a certainly very considerable reduction of the capital and wages sunk or spent in the agricultural districts. Advances in frugality and in industry which occur under such discouragements as these, are, in all probability, more trustworthy than those which occur in the sunshine of full prosperity.
It seems to us that we could hardly expect a better result than this, so long as the years of agricultural distress continue.
When Mr. Gladstone points to the enormous progress made in the United States in the payment of Debt during good years and bad years alike, during years when manufactures were at a very low ebb, as well as when they were improving, he does not, of course, forget that the industry on which the United States depend far beyond all others for their prosperity, is not really manufactures at all, but that great continent of all but virgin soil, in which all sorts of products, from tropical to almost arctic are found, and produced with a lavishness on which even the bad Protection system is not allowed to levy fines. North America, as a whole, hardly can have bad harvests, for North America, as a whole, is a vast assemblage of climates. And, as a matter of fact, while our agricultural conditions have been exceedingly bad, the American har- vests have been ample, and often overflowing. With such instruments of production as those in our hands, we should have had no difficulty in doing all that the United States have done, especially if we had also had the advantage they have, in needing no heavy expenditure on Army and Navy.to ensure the safety of the country. The comparison with France is indeed as much too favourable for us as the com- parison with tip United States is too unfavourable, for France has suffered from the loss of her vines, as much as we have suffered from the loss of our cereals ; and, in addition, France is in constant danger of in- vasion from a powerful enemy, who has recently shown her how easy it is even to master Paris. But. if our economical position is certainly intermediate between that of the United States and that of France, so is our financial position. We stand at least as much above the latter country, as we stand below the former.
On the whole, and considering that we are still paying the financial penalty of that disastrous foreign policy which the la Government pursued, we do not think that the statements id Mr. Gladstone's Budget can be deemed otherwise than hopeful. The financial position is decidedly better than that of last year, as regards revenue ; and if, as regards expenditure, it is something worse, yet we are rapidly paying off the fines imposed upon us by an insane policy, and steadily, though only gradually, reducing the Debt which the last Government had increased. After the seventh lean year, we could hardly hope to have received a much better account.
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