The Daily Madisonian

ENGLISH FINANCES.

The following extract, from the speech of Sir Robert Peel, on the 11th of March, shows the estimate of income and expenditure of the English Treasury, for the year, beginning April 5, 1842, and ending April 5, 1843:
"For the year ending the 5th April, I take the Customs to be £22,500,000
Excise 13,450,000
Stamps 7,100,000
Taxes 4,400,000
Post Office 500,000
Crown Lands 150,000
Miscellaneous 250,000
making a total estimate of the revenue for the year 1843 of 48,350,000l. The expenditure, now that the house has sanctioned the votes for the army and navy, can be estimated with greater accuracy. The interest on the debt will be 24,627,000l.; terminable annuities, 4,076,000l.; the interest on Exchequer bills, 722,000l.—making the total charge for the debt, 29,425,000l. The other charges on the Consolidated Fund, including the civil list, which I take to be 390,000l., are so numerous, that I suppose the house will, considering the task before me, excuse me from going through them in detail, but I take them at 2,368,000l., making a total charge on the Consolidated Fund of 31,795,000l. The votes for the army, if ultimately sanctioned by the House, will be 6,617,000l., the navy, 6,713,000l., the ordnance, 2,084,000l., and miscellaneous chargeable upon the annual grant, 2,800,000l. The vote for Canada is, and the present is for the volunteers, 108,000l. I think it was understood that when that charge should cease a corresponding sum should be expended on fortifications. I, therefore, take it at 108,000l. The charge for China upon the whole is 650,000l. For the present year, which may be divided into two parts, that is 175,000l. to defray the arrears of expenditure for the year that has terminated, and the vote of 500,000l. to meet the charges necessary to provide for the expense during the year ending the 5th of April, 1843. The total estimated expenditure for the country, then, will be 50,819,000l.' The general result, then, is, that the estimated expenditure for the year ending 5th April 1843, is £50,819,000
The estimated income 48,350,000
Leaving a deficiency of £2,569,000
Reckoning the pound sterling at $4 84, the annual expenditure of England is equal to two hundred and forty-six millions of dollars. The expenditure of France, if we recollect rightly, is about two hundred and twenty or two hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars. But, then, three-fifths of the whole revenue of England, as will be seen, is absorbed by the interest of the national debt, and the charges of its management, while the French public debt is, comparatively, very inconsiderable.