FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.
The chancellor of the exchequer opened the budget on the 8th of May. From his statements it appeared that the revenue of the preceding year so far exceeded his estimate as to leave a surplus of nearly £6,000,000 for the sinking-fund. For the present year, however, as the house was anxious to abolish the absurd system of defraying the expense of military and naval pensions, or the “dead weight” as it was called, by postponing its burdens, he estimated the gross revenue at £51,347,000 and the expenditure at £48,333,593, by which means he left only a clear sinking-fund of £3,000,000 for diminishing the public debt. The finance committee had recommended that this sum should always be kept inviolate for the purpose of reducing the national debt; and as the surplus on which they could calculate was no greater, no part of it could be applied to the reduction of the burthens of the country.