Now that we are to have a surplus—in consequence of the Ministry at length adopting the views of the Opposition—the first duty which devolves upon the House of Commons is to retrieve the financial mistakes of the past, and to rid us of its burdens. What the Conservative leaders advocated last session was not reduction of taxation, but retrenchment of expenditure. The Government had incurred a deficit of £7,500,000 in two years, and the first thing to be thought of was, to reduce the expenditure, in order that the deficit might be cleared off. Let Mr Gladstone do this—let him clear off the serious deficits in his previous years of office; and then—but not till then—ought he to propound new reductions of the revenue. But such a businesslike proceeding would not make a sensation budget; it would not surround the Ministry with that bright gleam of popularity which is to retrieve their position, and carry them through another session of barrenness and humiliation. In all probability Mr Gladstone’s proposal is to ignore the past deficits, and devote the whole of his prospective surplus to the reduction of taxation. By a reduction of taxes the country is to be bribed into forgetfulness of the past, and rendered placable to the appeal for respite on the part of a falling Ministry. It is not to be expected that Mr Gladstone will confine his favours to tobacco: he must support his great remission of duty on this luxury by minor reductions on articles of more usefulness. While striking four shillings a-pound off tobacco, he will strike a few pence or farthings off the price of tea and sugar. In fact, he will probably, in his usual way, give a trifling sop all round, in order that he may be allowed to carry his great point in the reduction of the duties on tobacco. The House will do much better to abolish, or greatly reduce, the duties on hops and beer. Surely it is intolerable that foreign luxuries, like tobacco and French wines, should receive the favours of the Legislature, while the produce of our own soil and industry, constituting a healthy element of the national food, should be subjected to heavy taxation. This is a matter which affects urban constituencies as well as the agricultural interest. Put it to the vote in any town or county in the land, whether they will have five shillings a-pound struck off the duty on tobacco, or get the fiscal burdens removed from beer, and there cannot be a doubt that the whole suffrages would be given in favour of beer, and against tobacco. Therefore if Mr Gladstone—as is most likely—be resolved once more to play an _ad captandum_ game, we trust the House of Commons will be on the alert to see that any possible reductions of taxation are effected on articles which enter largely into the food of the people, and not wasted—with what ulterior object, we need not repeat—upon an enormous remission on the duties on tobacco and cigars. But it still more behoves