On Monday, Mr. Gladstone made a speech against Mr. Goschen's
Budget He objected to the allocation of the Carriage. tax to the relief of local rates, as aggravating the difference between the burden placed on property and the burden placed on labour, to the disadvantage of labour, even though it tends to render the burden on personal property more nearly equal to that placed on real property. But his main criticism on the Budget was levelled at the proposal to diminish the fixed charge to be applied to the purposes of the Debt from, speaking in round numbers, 228,000,000 to 226,000,000. Against this proposal Mr. Gladstone argued at great length and with much ability. If one Chancellor of the Exchequer might reduce the Sinking Fund from about 27,000,000 a year to 25,000,000, another might reduce it from 25,000,000 to 23,000,000, and it would not be easy to show that the argument which was regarded as sufficient to establish the former reduction, was quite inadequate to estab- lish the latter. On Conservative principles, a Sinking Fund, once established, should be regarded as sacred, except under the most exceptional pressure, and Mr. Gladstone denied that any such pressure could be established in the present year. The country is a great deal richer than it was in 1860, —probably more than 30 per cent richer,—and yet in 1860 it devoted £28,000,000 to the service of the Debt. Could it, then, be argued that it was not rich enough to devote the same sum to it now P Mr. Gladstone entreated Mr. Goschen to reconsider this proposal, and Lord Randolph Churchill also assailed the reduction of the Sinking Fund.
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