Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/93

 1899.] The Budget. [85

extent. He proposed therefore to prolong the Savings Bank annuities from 1905 until 1911, with the result that the annual charge for them would be reduced. He proposed to cancel the book debt of 13,000,000/. to the Savings Banks which was established in 1892, and also to cancel 15,000,000/. of Consols now held for the Savings Banks by the National Debt Com- missioners, and in the place of the book debt and Consols so cancelled to set up terminable annuities of 746,000/. and 870,000/., expiring in the year 1923, when Consols would be redeemable at par. In the true interests of the sinking fund they should not only prolong the Savings Bank annuities and set up other annuities, but should also reduce the fixed debt charge from 25,000,000/. to 23,000.000/. a year. If they did that they would still have this year 5,815,000/. for the reduc- tion of the debt. Incidentally the Chancellor of the Exchequer remarked that, whereas in 1884-5 the amount of Consols in the hands of the public and Government Department was 529,986,000/. and 82,775,000/. respectively, at the present time the amounts were 358,000,000/. in the hands of the public, and 162,000,000/. held by public departments. If these pro- posals were accepted he would have to provide for an expen- diture of 110,927,000. Against that, on the existing basis of taxation, he expected a total revenue of 110,287,000/., which left nearly 900,000/. to be obtained in order to balance the account and leave a reasonable margin for contingencies. As a result of the reduction of the duty on tobacco the revenue, he believed, would reap a golden harvest in the future from increased con- sumption, and, therefore, he proposed to look elsewhere for his sources of supply. He proposed two new stamp duties — a duty of 5s. per 1(30/. on the nominal value of all documents repre- senting foreign or colonial bonds, stocks, or shares, which were not at present liable to any duty, to be paid on the first occasion when any such document was negotiated here. His second proposal was to impose the ordinary mortgage duty of 2s. 6d. per 100/. on loan capital or debenture stock created by any corporation or company under statute. He also proposed that the companies' capital duty stamp of 2s. per 100/. should be raised to 5s., and that letters of allotment and renunciation should bear a sixpenny stamp in future. The total yield from these increased stamp duties was estimated at 450,000/. He also proposed an increase of indirect taxation upon wine. The present duty was Is. per gallon on wine not exceeding 30 degrees of proof spirit, 2s. 6d. on wine between 30 degrees and 42 degrees, and a surtax of 2s. on sparkling wine. He wished to raise the duty to Is. 6d. per gallon on wine not exceeding 30 degrees, and to 3s. on wine between 30 degrees and 42 degrees, and to increase the surtax on sparkling wine to 2s. 6d. He also proposed a duty of 3s. per gallon on still wine imported in bottle. From these changes he anticipated an increase of revenue of 420,000/. The total in- creased taxation which he proposed would thus be 870,000/.