f British production and export, iron the most
important,--"the daily bread of all industries," as Cobden called it.
England engaged immediately to abolish all duties upon all manufactured
articles at her ports, and to reduce the duties on wine and brandy. The
English reductions and abolitions extended beyond France to the
commodities of all countries alike. Mr. Gladstone called 1860 the last of
the cardinal and organic years of emancipatory fiscal legislation; it
ended a series of which the four earlier terms had been reached in 1842,
in 1845, in 1846, and 1853. With the French treaty, he used to say, the
movement in favour of free trade reached its zenith.

(M8) The financial fabric that rose from the treaty was one of the boldest
of all his achievements, and the reader who seeks to take the measure of
Mr. Gladstone as financier, in comparison with any of his contemporaries
in the western world, will find in this fabric ample material.(16) Various
circumstances had led to an immense increase in national expenditure. The
structure of warships was revolutionised by the use of iron in place of
wood. It was a remarkable era in artillery, and guns were urgently
demanded of new type. In the far East a quarrel had broken out with the
Chinese. The threats of French officers after the plot of Orsini had bred
a sense of insecurity in our own borders. Thus more money than ever was
required; more than ever economy was both unpopular and difficult. The
annual estimates stood at seventy millions; when Mr. Gladstone framed his
famous budget seven years before, that charge stood at fifty-two millions.
If the sole object of a chancellor of the exchequer be to balance his
account, Mr. Gladstone might have contented himself with keeping the
income-tax and duties on tea and sugar as they were, meeting the
remissions needed by the French treaty out of the sum released by the
expiry of the long annuities. Or he might have reduced tea and sugar to a
peace rate, and raised the income-tax from ninepence to a shilling.
Instead of taking this easy course, Mr. Gladstone after having
relinquished upwards of a million for the sake of the French treaty, now
further relinquished nearly a million more for the sake of releasing 371
articles from duties of customs, and a third million in order to abolish
the vexatious excise duty upon the manufacture of paper. Nearly one
million of all this loss he recouped by the imposition of certain small
charges and