t, cowardly, and absurd. It was called
_ex post facto_ legislation. It was one of the most obnoxious,
detestable, and odious measures ever proposed. Its author was a vulture
soaring over society, waiting for the rich harvest that death would pour
into his treasury. Lord Derby invoked him as a phoenix chancellor, in
whom Mr. Pitt rose from his ashes with double lustre, for Mr. Gladstone
had ventured where Pitt had failed. He admitted that nothing short of
the chancellor's extraordinary skill and dexterity could have carried
proposals so evil through the House of Commons.[292] Meanwhile the
public counted up their gains: a remission on tea, good for twenty
shillings a year in an ordinary household; a fall in the washing bill; a
boon of a couple of pounds for the man who insured his life for five
hundred; an easy saving of ten pounds a year in the assessed taxes, and
so forth,--the whole performance ending with 'a dissolving view of the
decline and fall' of the hated income-tax.

SUCCESSION DUTY AND REDEMPTION

The financial proceedings of this year included a proposal for the
redemption of South Sea stock and an attempted operation on the national
debt, by the creation of new stocks bearing a lower rate of interest,
two options of conversion being given to the holders of old stock. The
idea of the creation of a two-and-half-per-cent. stock, said Mr.
Gladstone in later years, though in those days novel, was very
favourably received.[293]

I produced my plan. Disraeli offered it a malignant opposition. He
made a demand for time; the one demand that ought not to have been
made. In proposals of this kind, it is allowed to be altogether
improper. In 1844 Mr. Goulburn was permitted, I think, to carry
through with great expedition his plan for a large reduction of
interest. When Mr. Goschen produced his still larger and much more
important measure, we, the opposition, did our best to expedite
the decision. There are no complications requiring time on such an
occasion. It is a matter of aye or no. But when time is allowed the
chapter of accidents allows an opponent to hope that a situation
known to be unusually happy will deteriorate. Of this contingency
Disraeli took his chance. Time as it happened was in his favour. It
was no question of the substance of the plan, but a moderate change
in the political barometer, which reduced to two or