The subjoined table gives an abstract of total alterations of taxes in the fifteen financial years ending March 31, from 1861 to 1876 :

The most important of direct taxes, that upon incomes, underwent nineteen alterations from the time it was established in its present form, in 1842, till the year 1876. On its introduction, the income-tax was fixed at 7d. in the pound, which rate was maintained until 1854, when it was doubled in consequence of the war with Russia, and in 1855 it was further raised to 16d. The rate was reduced again to 7d. in 1857, and to 5d. in 1858. In 1859 it was raised to 9d., and in 1860 to 10d., while in 1861 it was again reduced to 9d., in 1863 to 7d., in 1864 to 6d., and in 1865 to 4d. In 1867 the duty was raised to 5d., in 1868 to 6d. and in 1869 reduced to 5d. In 1870, it was once more reduced to 4d., in 1871 once more brought up to 6d., in 1872 again reduced to 4d., in 1873 to 3d., and in 1874 to 2d. in the pound. In 1876 it was again raised to 3d. in the pound, but limited to incomes of over 1501. per annum, with deduction of 120l. for all incomes between 150l. and 4007.

The total amount annually raised by local taxation and other local revenue to provide for expenditure connected with the relief of the poor, county and borough police, roads and bridges, drainage and lighting of towns, &c., was as follows in the three divisions of the United Kingdom in the year ending March 31, 1874:

The following table exhibits the amount of the various branches

of local expenditure in each of the three divisions of the United Kingdom in the year ending March 31, 1874:—

Local Expenditure

Amount

ENGLAND AND WALES

In the Metropolis:

Poor Relief, including Workhouse Loans repaid
All other Parochial Expenditure payable out of Poor
Rates

Local Management by Vestries, &c. (exclusive of)
Metropolitan Board of Works), Maintenance of
Roads, &c., Watering, Lighting, Sewerage, &c.
Metropolitan Board of Works: Local Public Works,
Sewerage, &c.

£ 1,636,541

Poor }

136,507

1,773,048

1,516,964

1,385,015

Corporation and Commissioners of Sewers of City of

London, Local Public Works, Sewerage, &c.

1,136,371

Metropolitan Police

1,041,601

School Boards

Burial Boards, &c..

743,448

56,710

Total Local Expenditure in Metropolis

7,653,157

Country Districts :

Poor Relief, including Workhouse Loans repaid

6,053,998

All other Parochial Expenditure payable out of Poor
Rates.

583,154

6,637,152

County purposes: Police, Prisons, Lunatic Asylums, &c.
Municipal Boroughs for Public Works, Police, &c. .

For Erection, Maintenance, and Repairs of Commercial
Harbours

3,082,571

For Erection, Maintenance, and Repairs of Lighthouses,
&c., and for Pilotage and saving Life at Sea

According to a return issued in the Parliamentary session of 1876, the total amount of taxes actually received at the Exchequer amounted to 65,353,000l. in the financial year ending March 31, 1874. Adding this sum to the 29,247,5957. raised in the same period by local taxes-exclusive of loans-the total taxation of the United Kingdom in the year was 94,600,595l., or 2l. 18s. 11d. per head of the population.

The largest branch of national expenditure, amounting to threefourths of the receipts from local taxation in the United Kingdom, is that for the interest and management of the National Debt. The expenditure on this account more than quintupled in the course of the last hundred years, since the war of independence of the United States. At the commencement of the American struggle, in 1775, the total charge for interest and management was less than 4 millions sterling; but at the end of the war it had risen to 9 millions. The twenty years warfare with France, from 1793 to 1814, added nearly 23 millions sterling to the annual charge of the debt, which had risen to 32 millions in 1817, year of consolidation of the English and Irish exchequer. Since this date, the capital of the debt went on decreasing, the total decrease to the present time, amounting to 56 millions sterling, bringing with it a decline of the annual charge for interest and management to the amount of upwards of five millions.

The following table exhibits the growth of the debt from its origin to the year 1876, in historical periods:—

The capital of the national debt varied as follows during the fifteen

years from 1862 to 1876

There are to the charge of the funded debt, not included in the above statement, a constantly varying amount of terminable annuities, the estimated capital of which, computed in 3 per cent. stock, amounted on the 31st of March 1876, to 51,911,2271. Including the terminable annuities, the total national debt amounted to 776,970,5447. on the 31st of March 1876.

The balance in the Exchequer for the sixteen years 1861 to 1876 amounted to the following sums:

By the provisions of an Act of Parliament, passed in the session of 1875, the national debt is to be gradually reduced by means of a new permanent Sinking Fund, maintained by annual votes of the legislature. The charge of the Sinking Fund for the financial year ending March 31, 1876, was fixed at 27,400,000l.; for the year 1876-77 at 27,700,000l.; and for every subsequent year at 28,000,000l. It was also provided that the charges under this head. should be entered under the Consolidated Fund.