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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 930: FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.

The chancellor of the exchequer opened the budget on the 8th of May. From his statements it appeared that the revenue of the preceding year so far exceeded his estimate as to leave a surplus of nearly £6,000,000 for the sinking-fund. For the present year, however, as the house was anxious to abolish the absurd system of defraying the expense of military and naval pensions, or the “dead weight” as it was called, by postponing its burdens, he estimated the gross revenue at £51,347,000 and the expenditure at £48,333,593, by which means he left only a clear sinking-fund of £3,000,000 for diminishing the public debt. The finance committee had recommended that this sum should always be kept inviolate for the purpose of reducing the national debt; and as the surplus on which they could calculate was no greater, no part of it could be applied to the reduction of the burthens of the country.