CONSTITUTION AND RESOURCES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 



INCOME. 



s. d. 



i. Customs 21,033,33* o o 



8. Excise 25,904,45 o o 



3. Stamps 9,998,033 o o 



4. Income Tax 7,403,737 o o 



5. Land Tax 1,095,946 o o 



6. Inhabited House Duty. 1,243,087 o o 



7. Post Office 5,212,145 o o 



8. Telegraph Service 978,066 o o 



9. Crown Lands 458,903 o o 



10. Miscellaneous 3796i77o o o 



77,123,469 o o 



EXPENDITURE. 

 NATIONAL DEBT. 



11. Interest, Terminable Annuities, and Management of the Public Debt.. 96,804,853 o o 



ARMY AND NAVY. 



t.d. 



12. Army 14,466,700 o o 



Army Purchase Commission 946,500 o o 



Navy 9,543,000 o o 



24,956,200 o O 



CIVIL SERVICES. 



13. Collection and Management of the 



Revenue Departments : 



Customs 072,510 



Inland Revenue 1,621,791 



Post Office 2,634,131 



Post Office Packet Service i,i33>os8 



Telegraph Service 841,766 



Crown Lands paid out of Gross 

 Revenue 80,448 



*. d. 



14. Public Works and Buildings, 



Class I 1,077,669 



15. Salaries and Expenses of Public 



Departments, Class II 1,918,509 



16. Law and Justice, Class III 4,497,686 



17. Education, Science, and Art, 



Class IV 2,223,216 



18. Colonial and Consular, Class V.. 628,420 



19. Superannuations, Class VI 518,621 



20. Miscellaneous, Class VII 55,989 



7,283,704 o o 



10,920,110 o o 



21. Civil List 406,910 



22. Annuities and Pensions 303,139 



23. Interest on Loans, Secret Service, &c. 108,240 



24. Telegraph Sinking Fund, per Act 32 and 33 Viet. 



cap. 73 



25. Fortifications, per Act 32 and 33 Viet cap. 76 



26. Localisation of the Military Forces, per Act 35 



and 36 Viet. cap. 68 



11,740 

 250,000 



58,000 o o 



1 9,34i,843 



Excess of Income over Expenditure. 



71,102,896 

 6,020,573 



77,123,469 o o 



jrrants, 3|d. ; raisins, 2|d. ; molasses, i|d. ; raw 

 sugar, 2d. ; refined sugar, 2^d. ; tea, 4jd. ; whilst 

 the spirit-duty adds 35. gd. to every shilling's- 

 worth bought In the case of tobacco, of every 

 3d. paid for an ounce, a halfpenny is for the 

 tobacco, and 2^d. for taxes. The excise pro- 

 duces from chicory, 6647 ; licenses, 1,188,081 ; 

 malt, 7,544,175; railways, 507,079; spirits, 

 '3,749,542 ; sugar, 153,893. Stamp-duties, which 

 are prices fixed to stamped papers, on which it is 

 imperative that all legal documents concerning 

 transfer of property, contracts, &c. shall be drawn, 

 yielded 9,998,033. The income-tax is held to 

 be a war-tax, and never regarded as a permanent 

 duty. It is imposed on incomes above a certain 

 amount, now 150, and has varied in amount 

 from is. 4d. a pound in the year 1857 to 2d. in 1874. 

 Regarding the Post-office, it may be said that the 

 transfer of the telegraph service of the country to 

 this department of government, effected in 1870, 

 resulted in giving a large net profit on each year's 

 transactions, amply sufficient to pay the interest 

 on the money the state had to invest in buying up 

 the rights and property of the various telegraph 

 companies. The cost of collecting the customs 

 duties is, roughly speaking, about 3, 175. ifd. for 

 ev ery 100 of duty raised. During the period 

 1858-73, there have been reduced or repealed 

 taxes to the amount of 35,879,871 ; taxes imposed 

 equal to 15,672,218; shewing a gross reduction 

 of taxation for that period of 20,207,653. 



Turning to local taxation for expenditure con- 

 nected with relief of the poor, police, maintenance 

 of roads, public health, &c. we may subjoin the 



following table (see next page). Adding local to 

 imperial taxation, we find that the total taxation 

 of Great Britain for 1873 was 102,022,770, or 

 3, 4s. id. per head of the population. 



Expenditure. The chief item of our expendi- 

 ture is the payment of interest on and manage- 

 ment of the National Debt. During the present 

 century it has swallowed up 1,900,000,000 

 of money. Up to the restoration of Charles 



II. there was no public debt, for wars were 

 paid for from revenues derived from crown lands 

 allotted to vassals on conditions of feudal ser- 

 vice and payments by way of rent. Charles II. 

 abolished these feudal obligations, but exacted 

 nothing in return, so that the landholders became 

 landowners, and compensated the crown by em- 

 powering it to tax the people at large by excise 

 duties, &c. Charles II. got into debt to the extent 

 of 500,000, but even then it was called the 

 'King's Debt,' not the National Debt. With 

 King William 'the Deliverer' came the idea that 

 it was the duty of Britain to keep up the balance 

 of power in Europe, and also the idea of a 

 ' National Debt,' and in 1699 an act was passed 

 allowing a permanent interest of 3 per cent, 

 on it. The wars of the reign of George 



III. increased the debt from 102,014,018, the 

 amount at his accession, to 834,900,960. The 

 National Debt had been reduced to 763,045,940 

 on March 31, 1882. This sum is inclusive of 

 unfunded debt and terminable annuities. The 

 total charge for interest and management was 

 29,665,945 in the same year. Between 1867 and 

 1882 the debt was reduced by 40 millions. 



187 



