my

THR §. 7¢

 RITDGHN.

16g

most productive articles, the amount of the impost being
calculated with a view to the greatest consumption.
This was in truth the base of Peel's great reform of 1842.
But Lord Melbourne’s Cabinet had no member of sufficient
Brasp and audacity in finance to accept boldly and com-Prebensively,
 as Pecl afterwards did, the maxim that reduction
 of duties is one way to increase of revenue. The
Whig government made the experiment timidly, and they
met the common fate of those who take a great principle
With half-heartedness and mistrust. They picked it up for
want of a better. “I cannot conceive,” said Peel, “a more
lamentable position than that of a Chancellor of the Excheque,
 seated on an empty chest, by the side of bottomless
deficiencies, fishing for a budget.”
The proposals which the government had hit upon were
these. They returned to the general principle of the budget
which Lord Althorp had brought forward at the beginning
of the Whig reign (1831)—the boldest budget, as it has
Justly been called, since the days of Pitt.’ The main object
of the commutation of duties, Lord Althorp had said, is the
relief of the lower classes. The best way of relieving
them is by giving them employment; and this can only be
Secured by reducing the taxes which most interfere with
Danufacturing industry.” Among other devices for carry-0g
 this principle into practice, Lord Althorp had proposed
fo regulate the timber duties; He had failed to carry that
Teasure against Peel’s opposition, which was aided by a
general opinion that the budget was unsound—an opinion
Mainly due to the startling proposal to levy a tax of a half
Per cont. on transfers of funded property. Lord Althorp’s
Successor now came back to some of his ideas. The qnes-1841.


Br. BT.

. Welpole's Histo i
ry of England, ii. 634.
. The 10s, duty on Oanadian timber was to be raised to 20s., and the 5s.
uty ou Norwegian aad other Enronean timber lowerad to 20s.