Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/113

When Peel succeeded Melbourne, huge deficits were of constant occurrence; the revenue was falling, and the expenditure was increasing. Peel evolved order out of this chaos. He inaugurated the era of financial reform. In 1845 import duties were levied on no fewer than 1,142 separate articles. Peel and his pupil and successor, Mr. Gladstone, reduced the number to about five, and Peel was the first to discover the productiveness and utility of the income tax, as a means of raising revenue. The Queen most cordially supported him in his financial reforms, and authorized him to announce in the House of Commons that she did not wish to be exempted from the operation of the income tax. We owe to him more than to any other of the Queen's Prime Ministers that the national accounts almost invariable show a balance on the right side. Peel was a man of whom it was said that it was necessary to know him intimately to know him at all; and this intimate friendship existed between him and the Queen and her husband from the time he became Prime Minister, in 1841. It was an inestimable advantage for the Royal couple that their political tutor (if one may use the expression) in the early years of the reign was changed from the kindly but frivolous and complaisant Melbourne to the earnest and strenuous Peel, a man gifted beyond most with what Matthew Arnold has called "high seriousness," a quality without some portion of which no character has any solid foundation. Peel's Premiership was a national blessing from his political and economical achievements while he held the reins of power; and it was also a blessing from its effect on the Queen's political education.