THE BUDGET—PROPOSED CHANGES IN TAXES, ETC.—ARRANGEMENT OF THE CIVIL LIST.
The other business of this session related chiefly to financial matters. The budget was opened on the 11th of February by Lord Althorp, who estimated the charge for the year at £46,850,000; while the revenue, on account of the many taxes repealed, would yield only £47,150,000, and thus give an excess over the charge of only about £300,000. This, he said, did not afford much room for the reduction of taxation; but still he thought that something might be done, especially by reducing those imposts which pressed on the industry of the country; by relieving trade from fiscal embarrassments; and by introducing, in many cases, a more equal distribution of taxes. Lord Althorp avowed that he had taken his principles and general views from Sir Henry Parnell’s work entitled “Financial Reform.” He divided the taxes into three classes:—first, taxes on commodities of which there would be an increased consumption and revenue; secondly, taxes which, instead of being equally and impartially distributed amongst all classes, pressed more severely on one part of the community; and thirdly, those taxes which, besides interfering with commerce, took more out of the pockets of the people than was furnished to the revenue. Under the first head, his lordship explained that he intended to reduce the duty on tobacco, and on newspapers, stamps, and advertisements; under the second, that of sea-borne coal, which he proposed to repeal altogether; and under the third, the duties on tallow and candles, calicoes, glass, &c. The estimated loss of the reductions in the whole was £3,170,000, a reduction which the revenue could not sustain. The next point was, therefore, how to make good this loss without imposing an equal burthen on the people. Lord Althorp proposed to equalise the duties on foreign wines, and foreign European timber and exported coals; and to place duties on cotton, steam-boats, and the bona fide sale or transfer of landed property. The estimated revenue from these sources was £2,740,000; while on the other hand, the amount of taxes repealed or reduced was £4,080,000; so that the country gained £1,340,000, while it was stated the public services would not suffer. This financial project of Lord Althorp was vehemently attacked by all parties in the house. The experiment, it was said, was a dangerous one, and the probability was, that it would be necessary to raise by exchequer-bills a sum to meet the charges of the year; thus gratifying the country for a time by an apparent relief from taxation, only to produce the necessity of afterwards imposing heavier taxes on the people. The experiment was represented as the less justifiable, as not one shilling was included in the budget as being applicable to the diminution of the national debt. It was always believed by some that the budget was not one of reduction, but of mere transposition. Some taxes were reduced, but others were imposed to make up the loss. At all events, it was said, the budget was merely a pretext of doing something, while in truth it did nothing, or did mischief. An attack was especially made on the tax proposed on transfers in the public funds, and Lord Althorp was induced to abandon it. Ministers were also defeated on a division in regard to a proposed diminution of duties on Baltic timber, and an augmentation of those grown in Canada. The tax on steam-boat passengers was likewise abandoned, and an increased duty on our colonial wines, which his lordship consented to reduce. Finally, the proposed duty on the importation of raw cotton was reduced, and the whole affair produced a strong impression of the practical inefficiency of the government. Under any other circumstances, indeed, ministers could not survive the defeats they had experienced; but the anchor of reform saved the ship in which they had embarked, albeit it was a crazy one, from foundering in the sea of politics.
Ministers were not more skilful in the arrangements of the civil list. The late ministry had gone out of office after a vote by which the house of commons declared its opinion that the civil list should be referred to a select committee. When these arrangements were considered, it appeared that the most material changes made after the abolition of certain offices, were the reduction of the pension list in future to the sum of £75,000 per annum, and the subtraction of £460,000 from the civil list, to be placed under the control of parliament. On hearing the statements of the chancellor of the exchequer, the members of the late government expressed their satisfaction that the present ministers, so loud against expenditure when out of office, and pledged to retrenchment when they came in, had been driven to acknowledge that they found it impossible to carry economy further, in the matter of the civil list, than had been done by their predecessors. The new estimate, they said, was identically the same with the former, except as to the principle, whether a certain portion of the amount should be kept constantly under the control of parliament. The system of retrenchment proposed was by no means satisfactory to Messrs. Hume, Hunt, and others of the radical school. Ministers, they said, had not adhered to their promises of retrenchment in framing the estimates, especially in regard to the pensions. It was of no use to tell the people that most of these pensions were charitable; charity begins at home; and the house was bound to be just to the people before being generous to poor peers, or the poor relations of wealthy peers. Another point on which ministers had to encounter stern opposition from their old allies, was a proposal which they made for an increase in the army of 7680 men. No opposition, however, was offered to a resolution moved in consequence of a royal message, assigning to the queen, in case she should survive his majesty, £100,000 per annum, with Marlborough House and Bushy Park as town and country residences.