(if that
were impossible, or at least could not be carried), at a resumption as
early as circumstances would allow, of what you thought the proper line of
action which he insisted on suspending. Income-tax and war duties on tea
and sugar were and would continue to be, as I understood, the primary
claimants for reduction of taxation, in your judgment.... The very
vehemence of your convictions and expressions on _both_ occasions
perplexes me.

_Mr. Gladstone replied the same day_:--

... You think, 1. That I bound myself to the reduction of the tea and
sugar duties as a policy for future occasions, and not merely for the
issue then raised. 2. That in like manner I was bound to the reduction and
abolition of the income-tax. 3. That even if there arose in the system of
our expenditure a great change, involving an increase of ten or fifteen
millions of money over 1853, I was still in consistency bound to hold over
the first chance of reduction for income-tax, tea and sugar. 4. That
consequently until these duties were remitted I could not propose to
prosecute any commercial reforms involving, as nearly all of them do, a
sacrifice of revenue for a time. 5. It is because I have departed from
these positions by proposing a multitude of reductions and abolitions of
duty, other than the three mentioned, and partly or wholly in preference
to them, that you have lost confidence in my judgment on these matters (a
confidence to which I do not pretend that I had ever any claim).

If I have interpreted you aright, and I hope you will tell me whether I
have done so or not, this is all to me exceedingly curious; such are the
differences in the opinions of men formed from their different points of
view. Now I will give you mine. To give effect to the pledge of honour, by
which I became bound in 1853, I made a desperate effort in 1857, with all
the zeal of which I was capable, and with all the passion to which I am
liable. It was my opinion that the course then taken would be decisive as
to the operations in 1860, for the income-tax never can be got rid of
except by prospective finance, reaching over several years, and liable to
impediment and disturbance accordingly. I therefore protested against the
whole scale of expenditure then proposed; as well as against particular
kinds of expenditure to which I might refer. I likewise protested against
the provision for that expenditure which the government of the day
proposed. First, because t