Civil Services.-The following is an abstract of the original Civil Service estimates (net) for 1898-99, showing the more important items of expenditure : 1 But unappropriated receipts are estimated at 1,290,9311., reducing the net expenditure for 1898-99 to 20,501,7157. In addition to the ordinary expenditure above given, there were issues to meet expenditure under the Barracks Act, 1890, 300, 0007.; Telegraph Acts, 1892 and 1896, 160,000l.; Uganda Railway Act, 1896, 595,000l.; Public Offices Site Acts, 1895 and 1897, 350,000l. Under the Naval Works Act, there were issues amounting to 596,000l. out of the surplus of 1895-96, by Act retained in the Exchequer, and made applicable to naval works; and, under the Military Works Act, 1897, there were issues out of the surplus revenue of 1896-97, to the amount of 750,000. Besides these items, there were a few minor receipts into and issues from the Exchequer account; which is also swollen by cross entries in respect of sums borrowed and paid off during the year. The balance in the Exchequer on April 1,1897, was 9,867,1347.; the gross receipts into the Exchequer in the year 1897-98 amounted to 116,551,2821.; the gross issues out of the Exchequer in the year 1897-98 amounted to 115,499,9947., leaving a balance on March 31, 1898, of 10,918,4227. II. TAXATION. The revenue derived from the most important of direct taxes, that upon incomes, was as follows in the last ten years : The gross amount of the annual value of property and profits assessed to the income tax in the year ended April 5, 1897, in the United Kingdom, was 700,447,0647.; in 1871 it was 465,594,3667. Of the amount for 1897 the share of England was 603,495,2667.; of Scotland, 64,762,6531.; of Ireland, 32,189,1457. The real property so assessed in the last four years was distributed as follows: 6,100,326 £ £ £ 39,680,346 6,193,310 9,895,405 Total England 40,065,831 6,251,898 9,895,005 56,212,734 55,769,061 55,408,065 131,860,499 133,511,890 135,929,399 14,008,173 14,302,580 14,594,540 14,999,118 39,365,825 38,806,310 6,147,882 9,894,358 9,894,266 54,800, 902 139,670,210 Total 3,757,312 149,625,984 3,911,764 4,000,577 158,669,905 3,831,176 The annual value of the railways in the United Kingdom assessed to income tax in 1896 was 37,541,2607.; mines and quarries, 11,709,8037.; gasworks, 5,529,4567.; waterworks, 4,015,3167.; canals, inland navigations, &c., 3,433,9317.; other public concerns, including ironworks, 89,411,1847. In accordance with Acts passed in the years 1888-94, various duties are collected for local authorities by Imperial officers. These are: (1) the duties on local taxation licences; (2) half the probate duty paid on the property of persons who died before August 2, 1894, and also a share of the estate duty paid on the personal property of persons who died after August 1, 1894, such share being equivalent to 13 per cent. on the net value of the property on which the duty was leviable; (3) the additional duties of 6d. per gallon on spirits, and 3d. per 36 gallons on beer. The net receipts of these duties and the payments made to local taxation accounts in the year ended March 31, 1898, were as follows: The following statement (from a Return of July 22, 1898, on revenue and expenditure-England, Scotland, and Ireland-) shows for the year ended March 31, 1898, the amount contributed by each of the three divisions of the United Kingdom to the revenue collected by Imperial officers, and the expenditure on English, Scottish, and Irish services met out of such The expenditure on account of National Debt is now nearly six times the amount paid in 1775, at the beginning of the War of Independence of the United States. The total charge for interest and management was then only a little over 4 millions sterling; but at the end of the war it had risen to 9 millions. The twenty-two years' warfare with France, from 1793 to 1815, added 23 millions sterling to the annual charge of the debt, making it over 32 millions, decreased by slightly more than a million in 1817, in the year of consolidation of the English and Irish exchequer. Since this date, the capital of the debt has on the whole been steadily decreasing, excepting for the years of the Russian war. The annual charge, after increasing to nearly 30 millions in 1883, is now less than in 1857, at the close of that war, by 3,550,0397. Moreover, the present figure (25,000,0007.) includes a large provision for repayment of the capital of the debt, amounting in 1897-98 to 7,360,2921. The following table exhibits the growth of the debt from its origin to the year 1897. Before 1835, however, there was no calculation of the capital |