FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.
As the reform bill and the management of Ireland were the great business of this session, matters of trade did not occupy much attention in parliament. The chancellor of the exchequer made his financial statements on the 27th of July, when it appeared that in the quarter of the year ending on the 5th of January, there had been a deficiency of £700,000, making the revenue of that quarter fall short of the estimate by no less a sum than £1,200,000; ministers having calculated on a surplus of £500,000. The revenue in the year 1830, the chancellor of the exchequer said, was £50,056,616, while the expenditure was £47,142,943, leaving a surplus of £2,913,673. The expenditure of 1831 ending in 1832 was within £19,664 of that of 1830; but this equality did not proceed from an equality of votes in the two years, because in the latter year there arose, from the reduction of four per cents., a saving of £777,443. After entering into minute particulars of the receipts and expenditure, with the savings which government had effected, the chancellor of the exchequer said, that upon the whole there was a decrease of income in 1831, as compared with 1830, of £3,682,176. From this, if the surplus, which would have accrued if the income had been equal to the expenditure in that year, that was £2,933,319, were deducted, there would be an excess of expenditure in 1831 over the income amounting to £698,857. The state of the revenue, therefore, in the commencement of 1832, was, that instead of having a surplus of £2,913,673, as in the commencement of 1831, the expenditure of 1831 being £19,646 below that of 1830, there was a falling off to the amount he had already shown; and the real excess of expenditure over income in 1831 was the sum of £698,857. Lord Althorp attributed this deficiency chiefly to the reduction of taxation in 1830. The whole reduction of taxation in 1831 amounted to £4,780,000. From this, if £3,364,412 were deducted as the loss on customs and excise, there would be a balance of £1,414,588; a clear proof that the resources of the country had increased by nearly a million and a half in the consumption of articles not affected by taxation. He owned he had been too sanguine in the calculation he had made of increased consumption from reduced taxation, but it was satisfactory to observe that, notwithstanding the great reduction of taxation, the deficiency in the revenue had been so small. He felt it right to state, he continued, that the deficiency at the end of the year was increased in the April quarter, the amount in that quarter being £1,240,413. Finding this deficiency his majesty’s ministers had endeavoured to meet it, not by an increase of taxation, but by a reduction of expenditure. They had lowered the estimates by more than £2,000,000, and had reduced official salaries and appointments to the utmost of their power. In two years, the reductions they had made in salaries and officers amounted to £334,353. Lord Althorp next entered into a statement of the gradual decrease of the surplus, and then proceeded to the estimates for the year ending-April, 1833. He calculated that the expenditure of the year ending April, 1833, would be £45,696,376, which would be £2,162,051 less than that for the year ending in April, 1832. He next proceeded to give a comparative estimate of the income as it was in April, 1832, and as he calculated it to be for 1833. From the various items he expected a total of £46,470,000; deduct from that £45,696,376, as the amount of expenditure, and it left a surplus for the year ending in April, 1833, of £773,624. Against this, however, was to be set the deficiency of 1832, amounting to £1,240,413, and take from that sum the surplus of £773,624 for 1833, and it would leave a deficiency on the two years of £466,789. Mr. Goulburn contended that, according to the noble lord’s statement, there would be a deficiency at the end of the current year, on account of 1832, although in this year there was a surplus. After a few words from Sir Robert Peel, however, who questioned the reality of the reductions made by government, the financial arrangements were carried without opposition.