FINANCIAL REFORM 
R35 
In imposing these burdens, successive ministers had been AD, me 
unable to keep any definite principles in view. The Govern- 
ment had been living from hand to mouth, and had been 
forced to have recourse to every possible source of revenue, 
without having much respect, either to the pressure on the 
taxpayer, or to the influences of the tariff on economic 
progress. So soon as the war was over, an attempt was made 
to render the pressure of taxation less onerous. The income which was 
tax seems to have been the most serious burden; public reduced 
opinion was strongly set against it, and it was repealed in 
816. A corresponding boon was given, at the same time, to 
the masses, as the last additions to the malt tax were also 
abandoned ; though it was necessary to increase the excise on 
soap, in order to make up the deficiency which these remis- 
sions caused. 
The next steps in financial reform show a reversion to 
the point of view which had been adopted by Walpole; as 
serious efforts were made for modifying our fiscal system so 
as to give freedom for the development of industry and 
commerce ; Robinson and Huskisson set themselves to reduce with the 
and remove the taxes on raw materials. This was done in rt 
regard to raw silk ; while at the same time the strict monopoly jagusiry, 
of the home market, which the silk manufactures had hitherto 
possessed, was withdrawn, and foreign silks might be im- 
ported on paying a thirty per cent. duty. Huskisson pursued 
the same course in regard to other trades; the duties on 
copper, and zinc, and tin, were reduced to half the former 
amount; the duty on wool was also halved, and at the same 
time the very high tariffs on foreign manufactures of different 
sorts were reduced. Thus in 1824 and 1825 very consider- 
able reductions, as well as simplifications, were made in our 
tariff, and on principles which relieved the manufacturing 
interest, 
The various Chancellors of the Exchequer were able to 
proceed gradually with the remission of taxation, but in 1836 
the commercial outlook became most threatening. The, crisis 
of 1837. followed as it was by commercial staonation. told 
t The income-tax had been dropped in 1803, but immediately re-imposed. 
Vocke, Geschichte der Steuer des Britischen Reichs, 527. 
53_9