The budget, though modified by different forms, has also long been practised in France, the United States, and other constitutional countries, and has in some cases been adopted by autocratic Powers. Russia began the publication of annual budgets in 1866; Egypt has followed the example; so also has Turkey, by an imperial decree of 1875. All countries agree in taking a yearly period, but the actual date of commencement varies considerably. The German and Danish financial year, like that of the United Kingdom, begins on the 1st of April; in France, Belgium and Austria, it begins on the 1st of January; in Italy, Spain, the United States and Canada, on the 1st of July.

Previously to 1832, however, the English financial year ran from the 1st of January to the 31st of December.

It may be mentioned that Disraeli introduced a budget (on which he was defeated) in the autumn of 1852; and in 1860, owing to the ratification of the commercial treaty with France, the budget was introduced on the 10th of February. In 1859, through a change of administration, the budget was not introduced until the 18th of July, while in 1880 there were two budgets, one introduced in March under Disraeli's administration, and the other in June, under Gladstone's administration.

National budgets are to be discriminated (1) as budgets passing under parliamentary scrutiny and debate from year to year, and (2) budgets emitted on executive authority. In most constitutional countries the procedure is somewhat of a mean between the extremes of the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom the budget is placed by the executive before the whole House, without any previous examination except by the cabinet, and it is scrutinized by the House sitting as a committee; in the majority of countries, however, the budget undergoes a preliminary examination by a specially selected committee, which has the power to make drastic changes in the proposals of the executive. In the United States, on the other hand, the budget practically emanates from Congress, for there is no connexion between the executive and the legislative departments. The estimates prepared by the various executive departments are submitted to the House of Representatives by the secretary of the treasury. With these estimates two separate committees deal. The committee on ways and means deals with taxation, and the committee on appropriations with expenditure. The latter committee is divided into various sub-committees, each of which brings in an appropriation bill for the department or subject with which it is charged.

There are also, in all the greater countries, local and municipal taxations and expenditures of only less account than the national. In federal governments such as the United States, the German empire, or the Argentine republic, the budgets of the several states of the federation have to be consulted, as well as the federal budgets, for a knowledge of the finances.

Authorities.—Stourm, Le Budget, son histoire et son mécanisme (1889), which gives a comparative study of the budgets of different countries, is the best book upon the subject. See also Siedler, Budget und Budgetrecht(1885); Sendel, Über Budgetrecht(1890); Besson, Le Contrôle des budgets en France et à l'étranger (1899); Bastable, Public Finance (3rd ed., 1903); Eugene E. Agger, The Budget in American Commonwealths (New York, 1907).

[1] It was a name applied also to a leather-covered case or small coffer. Cotgrave translates bougette "a little coffer or trunk ... covered with leather." It became a common word for a despatch box in which official papers were kept. The chancellor of the exchequer thus was said to "open his budget" when he made his annual statement.

BUDINI, an ancient nation in the N.E. of the Scythia (q.v.) of Herodotus (iv, 21, 108, 109), probably on the middle course of the Volga about Samara. They are described as light-eyed and red-haired, and lived by hunting in their thick forests. They were probably Finns of the branch now represented by the Votiaks and Permiaks, forced northwards by later immigrants. In their country was a wooden city inhabited by a distinct race, the Geloni, who seem to have spoken an Indo-European tongue. Later writers add nothing to our knowledge, and are chiefly interested in the tarandus, an animal which dwelt in the woods of the Budini and seems to have been the reindeer (Aristotle ap. Aelian, Hist. Anim. xv. 33).

(E. H. M.)

BUDWEIS (Czech Budějovice), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 80 m. S.S.W. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 39,630. It is situated at the junction of the Maltsch with the Moldau, which here becomes navigable, and possesses a beautiful square, lined with fine arcaded buildings, the principal one being the town-hall, built in 1730 in Renaissance style. Other interesting buildings are the cathedral with its detached tower, dating from 1500, and the Marien-Kirche with fine cloisters. Budweis has a large, varied and growing industry, which comprises the manufacture of chemicals, matches, paper, machinery, bricks and tiles, corn and saw mills, boat-building, bell-founding and black-lead pencils. It is the principal commercial centre of South Bohemia, being an important railway junction, as well as a river port, and carries on a large trade in corn, timber, lignite, salt, industrial products and beer, the latter mostly exported to America. It is the see of a bishop since 1783, and is the centre of a German enclave in Czech Bohemia. But the Czech element is steadily increasing, and the population of the town was in 1908 60% Czech. The railway from Budweis to Linz, laid in 1827 for horse-cars, was the first line constructed in Austria. A little to the north, in the Moldau valley, stands the beautiful castle of Frauenberg, belonging to Prince Schwarzenberg. It stands on the site formerly occupied by a 13th-century castle, and was built in the middle of the 19th century, after the model of Windsor Castle.