THE BRITISH BUDGET.

Feilding Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 1411, 16 April 1902, Page 2

THE BRITISH BUDGET.

«. Deficit of Forty-one Millions. (Telegraph Prsss Association.) London, April 15. In his Budget speech, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach said the revenue was buoyant, though the value of foreign trade had declined, owing to the fall in the price of coal. Last year the expenditure totalled £195,522,---000. The total cost of the South African and China wars up to the end of March was £165,000,000, less the Chinese ideinnity of £6,000,000, which was still un-realised, and the eventual contribution from the Transvaal's wealth. The expenditure next year he estimated at £174,609,000, and the revenue at £147,785,000. Though he hoped for peace, it would be safer to add £18,500,000 to cover war contingencies, fresh railways in the conquered territories, bounties to the soldiers, return transport for troops, generous provision for the relief and reinstatement of Loyalists and their enemies. Part of such loans repayable from the Suspension Sinking Fund, reduced the defficit to £41,000,000. An additional penny Income Tax would yield £2,000,000 in the present year, and he promised it would be the first tax to be reduced. Later. The duty on bills on sight, dividend warrants, and cheques would be increased Id in the £, yielding half a million. It would be useless to touch beer, spirits, wine, tobacco, tea, and sugar. He preferred a registration duty of three pence in the hundredweight on imported corn and grain, and five pence in the hundredweight on flour and meal, yielding £2,650,---000. He proposed to issue a loan of £82,000,000, providing the balance of £8,850,000 by a draft on the exchequer balances, and possibly would ask for an additional temporary borrowing power to the extent of ten or twelve millions later on. In the discussion which followed, Sir William Harcourt considered the tax on corn was the worst class of tax desirable The Right Hon Mr Chaplain, Sir John Lowther, and Sir Howard Vincent approved of it. The House, by 254 votes to 158 sanctioned the duty on corn and flour. A few Unionists voted in the minority with the Liberals and the Nationalists.