adopted as his
own, the terrible heresy of Arthur Young, that to multiply the number of
taxes is a step towards equality of burden, and that a good system of
taxation is one that bears lightly on an infinite number of points. The
reader will believe how speedily an impious opinion of this sort kindled
volcanic flame in Mr. Gladstone's breast. He thought moreover that he
espied in the ministerial plan a prospective deficiency a year ahead. To
maintain a steady surplus of income over expenditure, he reflected; to
lower indirect taxes when excessive in amount, for the relief of the
people, and bearing in mind the reproductive power inherent in such
operations; to simplify our fiscal system by concentrating its pressure
on a few well chosen articles of extended consumption; and to conciliate
support to the income-tax by marking its temporary character, and by
associating it with beneficial changes in the tariff: these aims have
been for fifteen years the labour of our life. By this budget he found
them in principle utterly reversed. He told his friends that the shade
of Peel would appear to him if he did not oppose such plans with his
whole strength. When the time came (Feb. 3), 'the government was fired
into from all quarters. Disraeli in front; Gladstone on flank; John
Russell in rear. Disraeli and Gladstone rose at same time. Speaker
called the former. Both spoke very well. It was a night of triumph for
Gladstone.'[358]

There is another note of the proceedings on Lewis's budget:--

_Saturday, Feb. 14._--I was engaged to meet Graham, Herbert, and
Cardwell at Lord Aberdeen's, and I knew from Lord Derby that he was
to see his friends at noon. So I went to him on my way, first to
point out the _deficit_ of between five and six millions for 1858-9
which is created by this budget, with the augmentations of it in
subsequent years; and secondly, to say that in my opinion it was
hopeless to attack the scheme in detail, and that it must be
resisted on the ground of deficit as a whole, to give a hope of
success. I said that if among the opposition there still lingered a
desire to revive and extend indirect taxation, I must allow that
the government had bid high for support from those who entertained
it; that it was the worst proposition I had ever heard from a
minister of finance. At Lord Aberdeen's we examined the figures of
the case, and drafted two resoluti