FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.
On the 3rd of October the chancellor of the exchequer laid his view of finance for the year before the house of commons. This was the second statement within the year; for the original budget was a failure, and his lordship had been driven to the necessity of changing his operations. His present statement was that the total amount of receipts for the present year would be £47,250,000, and the expenditure £46,756,221. He had, he said, to allow for £200,000 more received from the account of the last year, so that he would take the surplus of revenue over expenditure at £493,000. He begged to observe that this surplus was larger than he had anticipated in February last, notwithstanding he had not succeeded in carrying several of the taxes he had proposed. In the customs there had been a falling off this quarter; but he had grounds for concluding that it would not continue. In regard to the sinking-fund, he said, that, at the commencement of each quarter, he had taken an average of the four preceding quarters, and that sum he had applied to the reduction of the debt in the succeeding quarter, if the revenue was not clearly falling. The act allowed the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt to apply the surplus to the purchase of exchequer-bills, as well as stock; and since the revenue had been diminished so much by the reduction of taxes, the surplus had been applied in the purchase of such bills. He had done this in order to diminish the number of securities in the hands of the bank; and although the plan was operose, the effect was, that the debt was not reduced, unless there was a real surplus of revenue.