PITTS FINANCIAL MEASURES.
On the 10th of June, Pitt opened his financial scheme for the year. In doing so, he congratulated the house and the country on the fact, that his hopes of the efficacy of the sinking-fund, etc. had been well founded. The permanent income declared necessary by the committee of 1786 to defray the annual demands, was £15,500,000; and for the last two years it had exceeded that sum by £78,000. As, however, there had been several extraordinary expenses, such as paying the debts of the Prince of Wales, fitting out the armament of the summer of 1787, &c., he stated that it was necessary to raise one million by loan, and to increase some taxes or duties to pay the interest of this loan. The new duties which he proposed were laid upon newspapers, advertisements, cards, dice, probates of wills, and horses and carriages, none of which, he conceived, would press at all on the poor, or heavily upon the rich. To increase the revenue by further prevention of fraud, Pitt introduced and carried a bill for transferring the duties on tobacco from the customs to the excise; it having appeared, on inquiry, that one half of this article, which would have produced a revenue of nearly £300,000, was obtained by smuggling. Sheridan again controverted the statements of Pitt; and on the 10th of July he moved, “that a committee be appointed to inquire into the state of the public income and expenditure; into the progress actually made in the reduction of the national debt since the year 1786; and into the grounds on which a reduction of the same may be expected in future, and to report the same, with their observations thereon, to the house.” Sheridan pledged himself to prove that the report of the committee of 1786 was not founded in fact; and that for the last three years the expenditure had increased to the amount of £200,000. A long debate took place on this motion; but it was negatived without a division, as was also a motion to the same effect, moved in the upper house by Lord Rawdon.