that
few and rare causes only will warrant them, and that as a general
rule they are mischievous, and in many cases, as to their
consequences, anti-social and immoral. Wherever they exist they
ought to be looked upon as evils, which are to be warred upon and
got rid of. One of our financial follies has been to give them
encouragement by an excessively low tax; and one of the better
effects of the income-tax is that it is a fine upon mortgaging.

FOOTNOTES:

[203] For an account of the creditors' meeting held at Birmingham on
Dec. 2, 1847, see the _Times_ of Dec. 3, 1847.

[204] To Lord Lyttelton, July 29, 1874: 'I could not devote my entire
life to it; and after 1852 my attention was only occasional.'

[205] This settlement followed the lines of a will made by Sir Stephen
in 1855, devising the estate to his brother for life, with the remainder
to his brother's sons in tail male; and next to W. H. Gladstone and his
sons in tail male, and then to W. E. Gladstone's other sons; and in
default of male issue of W. E. Gladstone, then to the eldest and other
sons of Lord Lyttelton, and so forth in the ordinary form of an entailed
estate.

[206] _Agam._ 1043, 'A great blessing are masters with, ancient riches.'

CHAPTER III

PARTY EVOLUTION--NEW COLONIAL POLICY

(_1846-1850_)

I shall ever thankfully rejoice to have lived in a period when so
blessed a change in our colonial policy was brought about; a change
which is full of promise and profit to a country having such claims
on mankind as England, but also a change of system, in which we
have done no more than make a transition from misfortune and from
evil, back to the rules of justice, of reason, of nature, and of
common sense.--GLADSTONE (1856).

The fall of Peel and the break up of the conservative party in 1846 led
to a long train of public inconveniences. When Lord John Russell was
forming his government, he saw Peel, and proposed to include any of his
party. Peel thought such a junction under existing circumstances
unadvisable, but said he should have no ground of complaint if Lord John
made offers to any of his friends; and he should not attempt to
influence them either way.[207] The action ended in a proposal of office
to Dalhousie, Lincoln, and Sidney Herbert. Nothing came of it, and the
whigs were left to go