§ MR. RITCHIEThe calculation is on the same lines as in the former Return. I turn now to the other side of the account—the amount of the revenue. Taken as a whole, the amount paid to the 236 Exchequer very closely approximated to Estimates finally made by my right hon. friend the Member for West Bristol. His estimate was £152,185,000 and the amount brought to account was £151,552,000, so that the receipts fell short of the estimate by £633,000—a very small difference indeed, I think, on so gigantic an amount, and one which reflects the greatest credit on those who had the framing of the Estimates. The deficiencies were: in Customs £767,000, in Excise £600,000,in no-tax revenue £166,000, together £1,533,000. These deficiencies were in part made up for by excesses in death duties representing £650,000, house duty £50,000, and income tax £200,000, together £900,000, leaving a deficit, as I have said, of £633,000.
I do not think it will be necessary to trouble the Committee with any great detail in reference to this revenue, but I ought to make one or two observations with respect to it. The part of the revenue that did least well was Customs, and the two articles on which the chief deficiencies took place were sugar and tea. The deficiency in the sugar revenue is due to more than one cause. It is due to the very large stocks that were in hand at the beginning of the year in consequence of the rush to clear, for fear of a rise in the duty, and also to the fact that the beet crop of 1902–3 was nearly 1,000,000 tons less than in 1901–2, which was a record year. It is perhaps also due in some degree to the suspense of operations connected with the Brussels Convention and to doubts as to the United States Treaty with Cuba, and likewise to the fact that bounty fed sugar can be stored more cheaply in the country of production than it can here. The deficiency in tea is in the main attributable to the anticipation of a reduction of the duty and the accustomed holding back. The only other Customs article to which I need refer is corn, on which the Is. duty was last year re-imposed, and which has brought in nearly £2,350,000. Before leaving this part of my subject, I should like to say, and I think it is only just and right to say it, that the Customs have been very much assisted in the performance of a very difficult work in connection with the new duties by the manner in which they were met by the trade, who 237 cordially co-operated with them in en-deavouring as far as was possible to remove the difficulties that existed. I now come to the Excise. Neither beer nor spirits were quite up to the mark. Beer stood still. Spirits advanced as compared with the previous year, but not so much as we had hoped. Of course there are compensations. The failure of the first may be taken to be due to a cold summer, which does not promote thirst, the second to a warm winter which does not promote the consumption of spirits. So owing to the cold in the one case, and the heat in the other we have not derived quite the revenue which we anticipated. There was nothing abnormal about the death duties. There was no exceptional number of large estates, and the level of values has continued low, so that the good progress we have made may be put down to the extraordinary work in connection with the collection of arrears.
Notwithstanding the high rate at which the Income Tax was fixed, the produce has been more than satisfactory. It was not in any way due to any special pressure on the part of the collectors, for nothing is more remarkable than the fact that, notwithstanding penny after penny being added to the Income Tax, there is no appearance of any falling off, but quite the contrary, in the moneys derived from the payers of Income Tax. The Post Office receipts were hardly up to the mark, but there is nothing disquieting about them. The falling short in the Miscellaneous Revenue is more than accounted for by the diminished demand for silver and the consequent shrinkage of the profit made by the Mint.