84] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1817. 



CHAPTER VII. 



The Budget. 



ON June ^Oth, the House hav- 

 ing resolved itself into a 

 committee, the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer rose, and said that it 

 would not be necessary for him 

 to tiouble the committee at any 

 very great length. He was of thii 

 opinion because, in the first place, 

 he had reason to hope that the 

 measures wliich he should recom- 

 mend were not such as were likely 

 to call forth much opposition ; 

 and, in the next place, the House 

 came to the suljject with move in- 

 formation respecting it than they 

 usually possessed previously to the 

 opening of the budget. In conse- 

 quence of the recommendation 

 made to them in the speech from 

 t!ie throne at the commencement 

 of the session, one of the earliest 

 proceedings of the Househadbeen 

 to appoint a committee to inquire 

 into the revenue and expenditure 

 of the country ; the reports made 

 by which would enable him to 

 spare those whom he had the ho- 

 nour to address, the trouble of 

 listening to many dry statements 

 of accounts. The consolidation of 

 the English and Irish exchequers 

 hail added the concerns of Ireland 

 to those on which he had been 

 accustomed to address them ; and 

 a vei'y considerable portion of la- 

 bour had been directed to incor- 

 porate the accounts of the two 

 nations. The arrangements which 

 had been made would bring them 

 under the consideration of the 



committee in a more convenient 

 and luiiform manner than that in 

 which they had ever before been 

 submitted to them. On this point 

 he alluded to the directions given 

 by act of parliament for the diy- 

 cluuging of all balances between 

 the English and Irisli exchequers 

 to the 5th of January last, and 

 for cancelling all grants on the 

 consolidated fund whicii had nut 

 been realized on that day, and 

 were not likely to be realized 

 within any moderate period The 

 consequence was, that from the 

 5th of January a new account was 

 opened for the consolidated tiea- 

 siiries, and the technical distinc- 

 tions which had liitherto subsisted 

 between them were no more. 



The committee appointed by 

 that House to inquire into the 

 ex))enditure and income of the 

 country had not encumbered their 

 report with a statement of the 

 vaiious distinctions of consoli- 

 dated fund, war taxes, and other 

 details of parliamentary appro- 

 priation ; but had on the one side 

 set down the whole amount of the 

 finances of the country, and on 

 the other the sum total of its ex- 

 penditure. He regretted to state, 

 that it appeared from the report, 

 that the deficiency of the revenue 

 for England, compared to that of 

 the year preceding, amounted to 

 ten per cent, and for Ireland to' 

 twenty per cent. ; but at the ter- 

 mination of a war like that which 



