FINANCIAL REFORM 839 
Peel relied in carrying through his reconstruction of our AD, Ls 
fiscal system in the interest of trade. The tax thus intro- 
duced, as a temporary expedient, proved so successful that it 
has since become part of the ordinary revenue system of the 
country, The”budget of 1845 was unexpectedly epoch- ata 
making, since it marks the beginning of a new development ’ 
of direct taxation. 
This result was not attained without a struggle. Sir 
Edward Bulwer Lytton was the mouthpiece of those who 
believed that this powerful fiscal instrument should be re- 
served for use on special emergencies?; but it has been too 
convenient to be lightly sacrificed, and it cannot be regarded hich has 
as inequitable. Indeed, it may be said that by the imposition ‘tained as 
of this tax the means were at last available for redressing the a regular 
injustice of which the landed interest had complained for a 
couple of centuries? and for forcing the moneyed men to pay 
on the income derived from accumulated wealth. It is not 
clear that Peel would have had any scruple in retaining the 
income-tax as a permanent thing, or that Pitt* would have 
regarded it as unfair ; but there was much room for question as 
to whether it was expedient in the new conditions of English 
life. The basis of general prosperity had shifted from the 
landed to the trading interest; and it was possible to argue 
that the well-being of the public was advanced by fostering 
the enterprise of the country in every way. Mr Gladstone was 
persistent in his opinion as to the demerits of this tax, and 
attempted to do away with it in 1853, in 1863, and again in 
1874, He believed that the tax was objectionable, in so far as 
it fell upon the active business energy of the day ; he desired to 
give relief “to intelligence and skill as compared with pro- 
perty®” But in this, as in other financial matters, practical owing to 
convenience has had an overwhelming influence. The country venience. 
was uneasy about the probity of the funding system, in the 
early eighteenth century, but no statesman, when really 
pressed, could dispense with it, and the income-tax when 
re-introduced could not be discarded ; it had come to stay. 
278. The application of laissez faire principled to our 
commercial system aroused comparatively little opposition, as 
} 3 Hansard, cxxvI. p. 455. 2 See above, p, 425, 8 Parl. Hist. xxx111. 1086. 
+ 8. Buxton, Mr Gladstone, pp. 120, 127, 129. $ 3 Hansard, cxxv. 1422.