The new Austrian Minister, Count Larisch, is at least thoroughly
frank, and the tone of his report on the budget for 1866 is so manly and different from anything we have had experience of there as to promise very well for the future. The expenditure is estimated at 53,127,0001., and the total revenue at 49,111,00k, showing a deficit of about 4,000,000/. only, which is to be covered by means of a loan. The expenditure for the army is estimated at only 8,876,000/e and the interest on the debt is 12,462,000/. The details of the taxation show how complicated a system the Austrian taxation still is. The largest single sum is raised by a land tax, which appears to yield 6,475,0001. Tobacco yields :5,630,000/., and salt 3,894,0001. where is a tax on meat yielding upwards of half a million, a house tax yielding 2,300,000/., and an income tax of 2,059,030/. The land tax and house tax would have yielded still more, but that Count Larisch, observing that they press so heavily on national industry as to sap the very sources of revenue, has, in spite of the deficit, reduced them. The customs' duties appear to yield only 322,000/., little more than a seventh of the sum yielded by lotteries (the worst of sources of revenue), which yield near 2,000,0001. We think Count Larisch would have done well to sweep away this revenue com- pletely, which saps, even more than heavy taxation, the sources of commerce and industry. There is clearly great room for an Austrian Mr. Gladstone. If Count Larisch be, as we hope, some- thing like one, he is feeling his way, timidly at first.
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