is, therefore, of necessity subject for a time | sense, was £67,927,000. The gross reto a good deal of misapprehension with re- venue for the year 1862-3 was £70,603,000; spect to the state of the revenue. One but deducting, for comparison, the Miscelmain source of this misapprehension is to laneous receipts, the China indemnity, and be found in those alterations of duties a sum paid to the credit of the revenue which take place from time to time, and from Stamps, which did not appear, on the effect of which cannot be traced up- either side, in the accounts of the on the annual statements without much previous year, amounting altogether to care and much information in detail. £2,213,000, the total revenue of the last Another source of it is in the item year, for the purpose of the comparison, called Miscellaneous. It is commonly will stand at £68,490,000, against supposed that this item simply consists £67,927,000 in the preceding year. But of certain branches of revenue somewhat as the figures that appeared in the newsminute, which it is not worth while papers were too favourable for the year to enumerate with separate names, and 1862-3, so the figures I have now stated which, therefore, are combined under would be too unfavourable if they were this one head. But, in point of fact, the left without any correction; because, in proper full designation of this head, order to obtain a true comparison, I must and the form under which it stands in deduct so much revenue as was received the regular public accounts is not Miscel- in 1861-2 from sources which were closed laneous Revenue, it is Miscellaneous Re- in 1862-3. Those sources were three in numceipts. The distinction between receipts ber. In 1861-2 we received for one quarter's and revenue may at first sight appear income tax, at the rate of 10d., together fanciful, but it is real, and even import- with arrears, a sum of £350,000, which ant. A very small portion of this branch was lost to the revenue in 1862-3. Again, of our income, which has now grown to we had received in 1861-2, on account of a considerable amount, consists of revenue paper duty, after deducting the drawback, at all. During the year just expired only a net sum of £351,000. Thirdly, we had from £200,000 to £300,000 properly received in that same year, in the shape could be so designated; all the remaining of hop duty, a sum of £241,000. These sums which make up the head of Miscel- three items, taken together, amount to laneous Receipts depend upon the rules £942,000, which, for the purposes of this which have been adopted by Parliament comparison, must be deducted from the with respect to public accounts and the revenue of 1861-2. voting of public monies; and they consist partly of repayments, in one form or another, of monies which have been voted by the House, partly of equivalents for those monies, as, for example, in the case of the sums realized by converting into money what are called "old stores." If, therefore, we wish to institute an accurate comparison between the revenues of two successive years, the safe way is to begin by deducting from both accounts what appears under the head Miscellaneous. If the Committee will follow me, bearing in mind what I have now stated, I will endeavour to lay before them the revenue of last year as compared with that of the year preceding; and we are now dealing with a matter of importance, for this comparison will enable us to measure the I will not trouble the Committee by elasticity of the resources of the country stating in detail what has been the growth under those circumstances of peculiar de- of the revenue during the last year as pression to which I have referred. The compared with a series of former years gross revenue for the year 1861-2 was since the year 1858. But I will observe £69,674,000; but if we deduct the Mis- generally, that after going through the cellaneous receipt and the China indem- same process of rectification which has nity, the real revenue, in the strictest already been adopted in making the com

When the deduction has been made, the amounts of revenue as received from the same sources, in the two years respectively, will be £66,985,000 in 1861-2, and £67,790,000 in 1862-3; showing an increase of revenue in the latter year to the amount of £805,000. Now, Sir, this is not of itself a very large or striking augmentation, but it is in my opinion an eminently satisfactory result if considered with due regard to the peculiar circumstances of the time. It is a result which I could not have ventured to dream of anticipating this time twelve months, had I then been aware of the severe pressure which was not only to continue, but indeed to undergo serious aggravation, both in Lancashire and in Ireland.

parison between the years 1861-2 and arrangements with the Galway Company 1862-3, it exhibits an average annual are not yet so far matured as to enable increase of very nearly the same amount Her Majesty's Government to make a posi as that which I have stated for the last tive proposal, or even to state what course year. In strictness it has been a trifle more, it may be their duty to take with respect for the average annual increase which has to it; and the arrangements with respect prevailed during the four years from to the West India Mail Service are still 1858-9 to 1862 3 has reached the sum of under consideration. The Committee will about £875,000. observe, therefore, that I cannot now preThere is, however, one branch of the sent to them the precise figures which revenue in 1858 9, as compared with the relate to those matters. And I may add, last year, in relation to which I may still there is a Bill before Parliament, which I venture to offer the Committee some infor- hope may become law, and which proposes, mation, inasmuch as it is material that they for the benefit of the public, to enable us to should see what has been the effect upon make a further conversion of stock, now the Customs revenue of the very extensive held by the National Debt Commissioners, changes, reductions, and remissions of duty on behalf of the savings banks, from the which have since taken place. I find that form of perpetual into that of terminable in 1858 9 the gross revenue from Customs annuities. If that Bill shall meet the apwas £24,118,000; deducting charges of proval of Parliament, it will eventually collection, which were £1,063,000, the net add £140,000 to the annual charge of the revenue was £23,055,000. In the year debt; but for the present year the increase 1860-1 extensive changes were made in of charge will not exceed £70,000. I have the Customs revenue which involved a then before me three items of expense balance of remissions and reductions over which are still uncertain. First, as to augmentations to the extent of £2,450,000. Miscellaneous charges, principally for PubNow, the gross Customs revenue in 1862-3 lic Buildings; secondly, as to charge for amount to £24,034,000. We have to Funded Debt; thirdly, as to the Packet deduct the charges of collection, which Service. On account of these three items, amounted to £991,000. The net reve including the entire charge of the Packet nue then stands at £23,043,000, against Service, I add the sum of £1,270,000 to nearly the same sum, namely, £23,055,000, the sum of £7,692,000 which represents four years earlier, nearly two millions the Miscellaneous Estimates already beand a half of duties having been remitted fore the House. The two together make during the interval. In 1859 60, however, £8,962,000. and give us a total of the revenue from Customs had been £67,749,000 as the probable or estimathigher. ed expenditure for the year 1863-4.

I do not, of course, include in the Estimate those extraordinary charges for fortifications which Parliament decided in the year 1860 to meet by a different method of provision.

I now come, Sir, to the estimate of the Expenditure and Revenue for the current financial year. For the current year the charge for Funded and Unfunded Debt, according to the present state of the statutes by which it is governed, is estimated But, Sir, I must not forget that the at £26,330,000; the charges on the Con- statement I am now making forms, in some solidated Fund at £1,940,000; the Army measure, an answer from the Government Estimates are £15,060,000; the Navy Es- to the Resolution adopted by the House timates are £10,736,000; the Estimates last year. I therefore proceed to put this for collection of Revenue, £4,721,000; estimate of expenditure in comparison. the Miscellaneous Estimates (so far as they with that of former years. It is less have been already presented to the House), than the actual expenditure for 1862-3 £7,692,000. There will be, however, by £1,553,000, and higher than that under the latter head some charges de- for 1858-9 by £3,085,000, although the pendent on questions not yet finally ad- charge for the Debt was then greater justed, the amount of which I am not by £2,197,000. The estimate of reveyet able to state to the Committee with the nue stands as follows:-The Customs same degree of precision. Of these charges revenue estimate is £24,180,000. For the most important part is connected with the purpose of affording a clear underpublic buildings; but besides the Miscel- standing of this account to the Committee, laneous Estimates the Packet Estimate I assume a renewal at the present rates of has not yet been finally settled. The all taxes which expire this year.

In

estimating the Customs at £24,180,000, | able duty of the remission of taxation, it there is taken into account the alteration is idle for them to trouble themselves with in the tobacco duties. It is not easy to the consideration of any questions tending estimate exactly its effect on the revenue, to the augmentation of revenue. But, at but I take it at £100,000, which sum is the same time, in the complicated and exincluded in the estimate. The estimate tensive financial system of this country, for Excise is £17,600,000. The receipts anomalies, great or small, are from time for the Excise last year were less than this to time brought to light; sometimes from amount; and after the statement I have the representations of interested persons, made, with respect to the distress prevailing sometimes because they are found to have in certain portions of the country, it will been anomalies when originally embodied naturally be asked why I anticipate an in the law, and sometimes because proviincrease in this branch of the public re- sions that were originally altogether unobvenue as compared with the last year, jectionable have become anomalous, and when the actual receipts were £17,155,000. even mischievous, in consequence of the But the receipts last year, before they alteration of circumstances. It is the duty reached the Exchequer, were subject to of the Government steadily and continuvarious deductions, such as from £150,000 ously, and in some considerable degree to £160,000 on account of hop drawbacks. without reference to popular pressure, alBesides, the outstanding portion of the though always paying a due regard to malt duties on the current year is better popular opinion, to remove those anomathan the corresponding portion was for the lies upon fitting occasions by judicious last year; and this, together with certain proposals to Parliament for their own sake minor augmentations due to the gradual as well as for the sake of the revenue to growth of the licence duties and other to be obtained by the change. duties of Excise, places the estimate for Excise at £17,600,000. The Stamps I take at £9,000,000, Taxes at £3,160,000, the Income Tax at £10,500,000, the Post Office at £3,800,000, the Crown Lands at £300,000, the Miscellaneous at £2,500,000, and the China Indemnity at £450,000. Here, again, it will be asked why so much larger credit is taken for this item than in previous years. The answer to that is twofold. First of all, in the year which has just elapsed, we made a large payment to the merchants in China of nearly £200,000-£192,000, I believe-on account of their claims, and there is no corresponding item of deduction from the receipts of the present year, which will therefore come net to the public service. Again, though I have only taken credit in the account of last year up to the 30th of September, I believe in the present year we shall be able to take credit up to the 31st of December; in fact, £450,000 from this source is an Estimate which I feel perfectly justified in making. All these items together bring up the estimated Revenue for the year 1863-4 to £71,490,000. The estimated Expenditure for the year is £67,749,000; consequently, there is an excess of estimated Income over estimated Expenditure of £3,741,000.

The Committee will, perhaps, incline to the opinion, that when the Government has no impediment remaining in its way to prevent it from proceeding to the agree

The first change in our revenue laws proposed in the present year which has a bearing upon financial matters, though mainly relating to trade, is that which has to do with the tobacco duties, and which has already become law. I have already taken credit for the gain likely to result from that alteration of the law in the Estimate of the Customs revenue which I have laid before the Committee. The next claimant upon our attention is one familiar to the Committee-I mean the duty on chicory. It is not necessary that I should dwell upon it at any length-the state of the case is very simple. There appears to be a very general agreement among per sons of authority both in the Revenue Departments and in the commercial world, that as chicory and coffee are used strictly for the same purposes in a combination together which is indistinguishable to the ordinary consumer, they ought to pay the same tax. Then comes the divergence of opinion; because one portion of the world says, "Raise the duties on chicory," and the other says, "Lower the duties on coffee." If that be, as it seems to be, the only alternative, my own inclination is very decidedly to raise the duty on chicory, not only because it tends to greater gain, but for these two very plain reasons:-At the present moment coffee is lightly taxed in proportion to its value, when we compare it with tea or any other article with which it can be compared; and, conse

He obtains a licence to sell spirits; and along with his licence to sell spirits he takes out a licence to sell beer, for which he then only pays £1. He afterwards drops the licence to sell spirits, and continues the licence to sell beer at the same price; but every other person wanting to sell beer, and not arriving at it through the medium of a spirit licence, pays £3 6s. I therefore propose that a man who arrives at a beer licence through the medium of a spirit licence, but who is a beer-seller, shall pay the same duty as he who takes it out at once without any such process.

quently, if we lower the duty upon coffee, | Committee is one of a similar character, we hazard great part of a very consider- and requires only brief explanation. At able revenuesome £500,000 without present, this case not unfrequently arises. having any hopes of so acting upon A person applies to a justice of the peace prices, or improving the circumstances for a licence to sell strong liquors. of consumption, as to give any sensible relief to the people, or of producing any corresponding or even applicable im provement to the revenue. I propose therefore to remove the existing anomaly by raising the duty upon chicory. I propose that the duty on foreign chicory shall be fixed at 26s. 6d. per cwt., which sum, after a fair allowance for additional waste in the preparation of the article, will, we think, correspond with the present duty of 288. per cwt. on coffee, With respect to chicory grown at home, we propose to fix the duty of Excise, ac cording to precedent, not less than to equity, with a small further allowance. We propose that the duty of Excise shall be 24s. 3d. per cwt. I may take this opportunity of stating, that while with regard to the other Resolutions which I am about to introduce to the Committee we shall propose to take them on this day week, and after that to introduce a Bill in which they shall be embodied; with regard to the Resolution on the chicory duties I shall take the course usually adopted in such matters, and shall ask the Committee to pass it at once, of course without prejudice to the ultimate judgment of the House on so grave a question, for the single purpose of preventing the release of the article at the present duty to-morrow morning.

I am sorry to detain the Committee with these details; but all persons interested in the financial proposals of the year expect, as a matter of course, that at this season of the year a full statement shall be made of those proposals, and it would not be fair to those parties it I were not to deal with all that affects them in detail. I proceed to mention another case.

A year or two ago we removed a great anomaly, by which no person except a publican was permitted to sell less than a dozen bottles of wine; but there is a similar anomaly still existing, which forbids every one except a publican from selling less than two dozen bottles of beer. I propose to remove that anomaly, and to give an additional licence for selling a less quantity of beer to those persons who are There are several other proposals, of no beer-dealers, that is to say, sellers of beer great magnitude, which I shall endeavour not intended to be consumed on the to pass over, allotting to each, if I can, premises. The Committee may rest aslittle more than a single sentence. It sured that this change will be equitable appears to be an evident anomaly in the and convenient, nor is it likely to law, as it is now worded, that strong liquors entail any risk of abuse. There is sold at clubs are sold without any licence. another question which also demands our These clubs are, for all purposes we are now consideration, and is of considerable inconsidering, in direct competition with terest to the parties concerned. The procoffee houses and hotels, which pay licence prietors of omnibuses have been before duties. We propose that the clubs shall the Chancellor of the Exchequer, seeking pay the same rates of licence duties as the for a reduction of the duty to which they occupiers of hotels and coffee-houses; but, are liable. Their case really divides itself of course, effectual provision will be made into two parts. One of their complaints to prevent any annoying accompanimentis of the amount of duty they have now to such as interference at the discretion of pay; and the other of the undue competia magistrate, or liability to the visitations tion they have to sustain. With respect of the police. The question is of little moment as to revenue, but is a question of equality of taxation, and my whole object is to establish that equality. The next proposal I have to submit to the The Chancellor of the Exchequer

to the amount of duty they have to pay, it is only a quarter of what the proprietors of public carriages had to pay twentyfive or thirty years ago; and so lately as about eight years ago this House took the [matter

peared that those of the poorer class who had occasion to travel were actually losers by the introduction of railways, and Parliament, in order to apply a remedy to so great an evil, made a special arrangement for exempting trains of a peculiar class. But a system has grown up under the provisions of the Act, as they have been interpreted, which gives to the whole of what is termed excursion traffic an entire exemption from duty, while the regular passenger traffic is liable to a tax of 5 per cent on the receipts. The Government submit most confidently to the House that that is an anomalous and injurious state of things. In the first place, it is wrong, unless for special and strong reasons, to draw a distinction between one kind of traffic and another, and to give a premium to railway companies to cultivate one kind of traffic in preference to another. In the second place, it is not only wrong, but absurd, to give that particular premium in the case of what we term excursion traffic. It, no doubt, is very useful and valuable in its way, but at the same time seems to be attended with considerable inconvenience and considerable danger. Far be it from me to say that Parliament should presume to discourage or repress excursion traffic; but we ought not to stimulate and force it by direct pecuniary encouragement at the expense of the general traffic of the country. The effect of this singularly anomalous arrangement is, that while railways are supposed to pay 5 per cent on their receipts, they only pay between 3 and 3 per cent; and in the case of some railways, which deal only in a particular kind of traffic, not much above 2 per cent; and so far they may, perhaps, be thought to give a fair subject for complaint to competing interests. What we propose is this to destroy the exemption altogether, and to commute the payment of 5 per cent with exemptions into a payment of 3 per cent without exemptions. The result will be nearly the same. It will be slightly in favour of the Treasury; but we shall establish a sound principle instead of an unsound principle, and an equal state of things between rival interests.

matter into its own hands, and did grant a considerable relief to these parties. This adjustment, recent as it is, may, I think, be held to be a settlement of the question as to amount of duty. I confess it appears to me that the only case they can possibly make at present is that of undue competition. The proprietors of stage carriages in the country complain that carriers, who profess to travel under four miles an hour, and who also carry passengers, pay no duty whatever. It is impossible, as is alleged, to know whether they do travel at four miles an hour or not; but their carriages are not of a character to pay at the same rate as stage coaches; and what I propose is, that all small carriages carrying passengers for hire shall pay half the duty now paid by proprietors of stage carriages; thus combining a general relief in favour of small carriages with the removal of the exemption as regards those small carriages which are said to travel under four miles an hour. The other part | of the complaint of the omnibus owners is with respect to the competition of the railways and of the unequal manner in which the railway duty, as now imposed, is found to work. The House is aware that railways are supposed to pay 5 per cent on their passenger receipts. But in 1842 a sort of compact was made between the Government and the railway companies, and it was ratified by the legislation of this House, under which the railway companies undertook the obligation to run a certain number of trains at fares not exceeding one penny per mile, upon the condition of the exemption of those trains from taxation. It may be said that this was a covenant then made between them and the Government, and that if the exemption be discontinued, they are released from the obligation of running the trains. That is so, as far as regards the trains contemplated by the Act of 1844; but that Act did not contemplate the trains which I now have principally in view, and the plan we propose is more favourable to the railway companies than the compact or covenant of 1844, The question whether the legal obligation should be continued is not within my department, and is one upon which I am not prepared to give any strong opinion. But since that time There is another small matter which I an anomalous state of things has grown have to mention, We propose to assimiup. Although exemptions are, as a general late the law in Ireland as to charitable rule, to be strongly condemned, the case legacies to the law of England. Chariof this exemption is peculiar; for at the table legacies in Ireland at the present time when it was granted, in 1844, it ap-moment are insignificant in amount, but VOL. CLXX. [THIRD SERIES.]

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