utely unfair, to deprive the Lords
altogether of their power of rejection even in cases of taxation;
namely, that the Commons, when imposing taxes, are taxing the Lords
themselves, as well as the other classes of the community; while the
Lords alone of the whole nation are absolutely unrepresented in the
House of Commons. There is a frequent cry for a graduated income-tax;
and surely if an unscrupulous demagogue in office were to contrive such
a graduation as would subject a peer to three times the income-tax borne
by a commoner, it would be a monstrous iniquity if the peers were to
have no power of protecting themselves in their own House.

In the last sentence of his speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
"respectfully reserved to himself the freedom of acting in such a way as
should appear to offer any hope of success in giving effect by a
practical measure to the principle contained in the first resolution."
And it was, probably, an exemplification of the power of which he thus
bespoke the use that he the next year struck out a scheme for insuring
the repeal of the paper-duties, including it in one bill with all his
other financial propositions, instead of dividing them in the ordinary
way in several distinct bills. It was a manoeuvre which too much
resembled the system of "tacking," which had been so justly denounced as
one of the most unseemly manoeuvres of faction in the previous
century.[316] But, as some of the principal reasons which in the
preceding year had led the Lords to condemn the repeal had ceased to
exist, and the deficiency of the revenue had been converted into a
surplus, they thought it wiser to prove their superiority of wisdom to
the House of Commons by showing a more conciliatory spirit, and passed
the bill; though the course adopted, which had the effect of depriving
the Lords of that power of examination of the details of the financial
scheme of the government which they had hitherto enjoyed without any
question or dispute, was strongly protested against in both Houses, and
by some members who were not generally unfriendly to the administration.

A hundred years had now elapsed since George III. ascended the throne.
It had been a period full of transactions of great importance,
developing the constitution in such a manner and to such an extent as to
make a change in its character but little inferior to those which had
been produced by the contests of the preceding century. One principal
r