338 
LAISSEZ FAIRE 
of the revenue. During these ten years the Customs and 
Excise increased by £1,707,000, or, at the rate of £170,000 a 
year; while the increase of the export trade was £15,156,000, 
or, at the annual rate of £1,515,000. Let us next take the 
twelve years from 1842 to 1853. You remitted during that 
period of Customs and Excise £13,238,000, and imposed 
£1,029,000, presenting a balance remitted of £12,209,000, or, 
an annual average of £1,017,000. What was the effect on 
revenue ? The Customs and Excise increased £2,656,000, or, 
at an annual rate of £221,000. When you remitted practi- 
rally nothing, your Customs revenue, in consequence of the 
increase of the population, grew at the rate of £170,000 
per annum ; and when you remitted £1,017,000 a year, your 
Customs and Excise revenue grew faster than when you 
remitted nothing, or next to nothing at all. I ask, is not 
this a conclusive proof that it is the relaxation and reform of 
your commercial system which has given to the country the 
disposition to pay taxes along with the power also which it 
now possesses to support them? The foreign trade of the 
country, during the same period, instead of growing at the 
rate of £1,515,000 a year, grew at the rate of £4,304,000.” 
The effect of Peel's measures was to demonstrate how much 
the trade and industry of the country might be encouraged 
by the re-adjustment of fiscal burdens, but it was none the 
less a complete realisation of the principle of laissez fuire 
in fiscal arrangements. The taxation of the country was 
arranged simply and solely with reference to revenue; all 
attempts to foster an element in national economic life at the 
axpense of others were abandoned. 
Thechange This change could not have been carried through success- 
DE fully, but for Peel's care to provide a temporary source of 
A revenue, in order to allow time for trade to respond to the 
imposition stimulus of reduced tariffs. The particular expedient he 
adopted, of imposing an income-tax for a time, proved to the 
public what large supplies might be obtained from this 
source. Once again its fruitfulness was remarkable. A tax 
of this ype? had afforded the means by which Pitt maintained 
the struggle with France, under unexampled conditions of 
discouragement in 1798. and it served as the source on which 
wma 
revenue 
swpanded. 
X Vocke. Geschichte der Steuer, p. 523.