_Wednesday, April 30th._--Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, returning to the
Exchequer after an interval of thirteen years, made a much better
Budget speech than one would have expected. It was longer, perhaps,
than was absolutely necessary. Like the late Mr. GLADSTONE, he has a
tendency to digress into financial backwaters instead of sticking to
the main Pactolian stream. His excursus upon the impracticability of
a levy on capital was really redundant, though it pleased the
millionaires and reconciled them to the screwing-up of the
death-duties. Still, on the whole, he had a more flattering tale to
unfold than most of us had ventured to anticipate, and he told it
well, in spite of an occasional confusion in his figures. After all,
it must be hard for a Chancellor who left the national expenditure
at a hundred and fifty millions and comes back to find it multiplied
tenfold not to mistake millions for thousands now and again.
[Illustration: _Budget Victims._ "YOU MAY HAVE WON THE WAR, BUT WE'VE
GOT TO PAY FOR IT."]
On the whole the Committee was well pleased with his performance,
partly because the gap between revenue and expenditure turned out to
be a mere trifle of two hundred millions instead of twice or thrice
that amount; partly because there was, for once, no increase in the
income-tax; but chiefly, I think, for the sentimental reason that in
recommending a tiny preference for the produce of the Dominions and
Dependencies Mr.
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