§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the falling off in the receipts of the Revenue under the head of Customs and Excise, amounting in the first four months of 1879 to one million, as compared with the similar period of 1878, is due merely to delay in collection, or is owing to a real decrease of consumption and consequent diminution of Revenue 57 beyond the amount estimated in the Budget?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERThe falling off to which the hon. and learned Member refers as having occurred in the last four months of 1879 is not really £1,000,000. The accounts up to last Saturday show a falling off of something less than £900,000. As regards the causes of the falling off, I have notes both from the Board of Inland Revenue and the Customs Office. Taking the Customs first, I have to say that the actual net receipt of duties in the year ending March 31, 1879, was £20,345,475. The Budget Estimate was fixed at £20,000,000, being a reduction of £345,475 on the year's receipt. The account under articles will not be ready until the evening of Tuesday next; but, according to the amount exchequered, the loss at the present date is, in round numbers, £270,000. If the exact proportion of estimated reduction were realized, the loss would now have been only £115,158; so that, in one sense, it may be said the reduction has travelled too fast by an amount of something like £155,000. But the position is explained by a reference to the heavy receipts of April, 1878, when the yield from tea and tobacco was in excess of the requirements of consumption. In the following months of that year the diminished receipts caused a natural adjustment of the Revenue. We have not yet advanced sufficiently in the financial year to show by comparison the relative strength of the two periods; but there is almost a certainty that we shall soon overtake the disparity; and, so far as present prospects are concerned, there is nothing to show that there will be a loss beyond that estimated—namely, £345,000. The actual falling off in the first four months of this financial year, as compared with the preceding year, under the head of Excise is £700,000. Of this sum the loss from deferred collection is £310,000, leaving a real loss of £390,000. The loss estimated in the Budget, chiefly from knowledge of malt charge, was £130,000, so that the excess beyond the estimated loss is £260,000. It will be observed that in stamps there is an increase of £217,000, and in Income Tax of £705,000,thoexcess over the Estimates under these heads being about equal to the falling off under the other heads.