The Budget Speech.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XVII, Issue 2946, 17 April 1899, Page 4

The Budget Speech.

A CONSIDERABLE SURPLUS,

SUGGESTED INCREASE OF

TAXATION.

London, April 14

In the House of Commons last night Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered his Budget Speech.

In the course of its deliverance the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the past year's revenue had exceeded the expenditure by £186,000. Proceeding, Sir Michael HicksBeach declared that he proposed to reduce the annual charge on thj national debt by two millions, hence in the current year he would require £110,927,000, which was £640,000 in excess of the estimated revenue. The balance he proposed to provide by a new stamp duty of five shillings per hundred pounds on foreign and colonial bonds, stocks and shares, 1 when negotiated in Great Britain ; and a mortgage duty of half a crown per hundred pounds on loan capital and debentures under the statute. He also proposed to make an inI crease in the import duty on wines. I Concluding hi 3 speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the total estimated increase from these sources was £870,000. In the discussion which followed, Mr Henry Fowler, a member of the late Gladstone and Eosebery Minis tries, protested against tampering with the sinking fund aud against the prohibition of Australian wines. Sir W. V. Harcourt, late Leader of the Liberal Party.protested against repudiation of tbe country's obligation. The proposal of the Government was one of the most disastrous proposals for repudiating the nation's bill ever made. Sir William characterised the proposals as trashy finance.

Sir Charles Dilke said the wine duties would lead to Great Britain losing the favored nation treatment. Sir M. Hicks-Beach, in reply, ridiculed the idea of retaliation, and said colonial wine imports were infinitesimal, and the duty only meant the difference of a penny per bottle on wine. He also proposed not only to increase joint stock companies' capital duty from half a crown to five shillings per hundred pounds, but he would impose a duty of sixpence on letters of allotment. The renunciation of three shillings per gallon on still wine imported in bottle would be made, but an extra sixpence per gallon duty on other wines, including colouial, would be imposed. He also showed that the value of the Suez Canal shares held by the British Company had, during the two years, increased by four millions, against an expenditure of one million in the Soudan War.

The House formally sanctioned the proposals.