The Fines include sums levied by the courts of law and amounts chargeable on the salaries paid to all public servants, penalties for frauds on the revenue, and for contraventions of the laws regulating the terms under which trading and personal licenses are granted.
Miscellaneous Receipts cover the profits on the State railways, and on the postal and telegraph service, port dues, and subscriptions to the State telephones.
The State Revenues are levied from wood cut in the Government forests, from coal and salt and other mines, from fees charged at public institutions, from the profit on the State bank and the State printing establishment, and from a variety of minor enterprises for which State sanction is required.
The Miscellaneous Receipts are gathered from a variety of sources. The principal of these sources are the duties charged on cattle imported from abroad, the fees paid for exemption from military service, the sale of Government stores which are no longer required, the contributions made by the Orient Railway Company towards the cost of working those portions of their lines which pass over Bulgarian territory, and, above all, the profit earned by the State on the issue of coin struck for the use of the country in foreign mints. This year the Government intend to have £600,000 coined abroad in silver, and the profit arising from the difference between the cost of production and the price of issue is expected to amount to £188,000.
The expenditure for the year is necessarily based upon problematical estimates. I am assured that the amounts assigned to the various departments of the Administration are largely in excess of the amounts which it is believed will be actually required. The only charge which can be definitely ascertained beforehand is the amount needed for the service of the Public Debt.
This amount seems much larger in figures than it is in reality. The total of £693496 is made up as follows:—
£
Pensions 44,000
Tribute to the Porte in respect of Eastern Roumelia … 118,040
Payment to the Porte for the Vakarel-Bellova Railway … 2,777
Total … 164,817
SINKING FUNDS
Russian indemnity for costs of occupation 100,800
Arrears due to Turkey on Roumelian tribute 20,000
Roumelian loan contracted with Imperial Ottoman Bank 20,000
Varna-Rustschuk Railway Purchase Loan 25,520
6 per cent. Mortgage Loan, 1889 15,400
y y „ 1892 21,152
Total … 202,872
Travelling 