set out in one of the most interesting
of his political memoranda:--

The liberals were, to all appearance, pledged to the reconstruction
of the tax by their opinions, and the tories by their party
following. The small fraction of Peelites could probably be relied
upon the other way, and some few individuals with financial
knowledge and experience. The mission of the new government was
described by Lord Aberdeen in the House of Lords as a financial
mission, and the stress of it thus lay upon a person, very
ill-prepared. My opinions were with Peel; but under such
circumstances it was my duty to make a close and searching
investigation into the whole nature of the tax, and make up my mind
whether there was any means of accepting or compounding with the
existing state of opinion. I went to work, and laboured very hard.
When I had entered gravely upon my financial studies, I one day had
occasion--I know not what--to go into the city and to call upon
Mr. Samuel Gurney, to whom experience and character had given a
high position there. He asked me with interest about my
preparations for my budget; and he said, 'One thing I will venture
to urge, whatever your plan is,--let it be simple.' I was a man
much disposed to defer to authority, and I attached weight to this
advice. But as I went further and further into my subject, I became
more and more convinced that, as an honest steward, I had no option
but to propose the renewal of the tax in its uniform shape. I
constructed much elaborate argument in support of my proposition,
which I knew it would be difficult to answer. But I also knew that
no amount of unassisted argument would suffice to overcome the
obstacles in my way, and that this could only be done by large
compensations in my accompanying propositions. So I was led
legitimately on, and on, until I had framed the most complicated
scheme ever submitted to parliament.

THE FABRIC PLANNED

Truly has it been said that there is something repulsive to human nature
in the simple reproduction of defunct budgets. Certainly if anything can
be more odious than a living tax, it is a dead one. It is as much as is
consonant to biography to give an outline of the plan that was gradually
wrought out in Mr. Gladstone's mind during the first three laborious
months of 1