DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0451
ECONOMIC LEGISLA TION, 1815-41. 435
minds could see that unless the brewer were restrained from using
anything but malt and hops, he would infallibly choose the
cheapest material for his manufacture.
In 1834 the Whig government split in consequence of divisions
■on the Irish Church question, but was reconstructed under Lord
Melbourne. But the new administration did not last long. It
was succeeded by the first government of Sir Robert Peel, who, in
order to test public feeling, dissolved the parliament. But this
was not favourable to the new ministry, and in four months Peel
resigned, and Melbourne returned to osfice. Spring Rice, after-
wards Lord Monteagle, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Lord Monteagle, whom I knew well in the later years of his life,
Avas a very interesting person to a student of fiscal history, for he
was exceedingly communicative as to his administrative career,
and remained to the close of his life a representative of that
financial school, which began with Huskisson and Robinson, and
was continued by Althorp. The principle of those persons was
to remit excises and taxes on raw materials, technically so called,
and to reduce them in the case when they could not be wholly
remitted, to such a point as would leave them available for pur-
poses of revenue. He was scared, however, by excessive remissions
of taxation, and was unable to discover that there were occasions
on which the entire liberation of an industry from taxation would
be followed by compensations in other quarters. He reduced, for
example, the duty on paper ; but he led the Opposition in the
Lords when that House rejected the budget in which the paper
duty was wholly repealed, an event which led to the latest
collision between the two Houses, and the passage of the standing
order under which the claim of the Lords to revise taxation was
peremptorily negatived. But Lord Monteagle was convinced that
he had taken a wise and judicious course, and he would dwell in
treating this subject, on the enormous length at which he spoke
in the Lords on the financial situation at this crisis. In fact, he
had a good deal of that temper which was nicknamed the finality
principle, which attempted to affirm that there were facts in
finance and politics which must be taken as finally settled.
The five years 1837-42 were of great financial difficulty. The
expenses of government, and especially of the services, increased,
minds could see that unless the brewer were restrained from using
anything but malt and hops, he would infallibly choose the
cheapest material for his manufacture.
In 1834 the Whig government split in consequence of divisions
■on the Irish Church question, but was reconstructed under Lord
Melbourne. But the new administration did not last long. It
was succeeded by the first government of Sir Robert Peel, who, in
order to test public feeling, dissolved the parliament. But this
was not favourable to the new ministry, and in four months Peel
resigned, and Melbourne returned to osfice. Spring Rice, after-
wards Lord Monteagle, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Lord Monteagle, whom I knew well in the later years of his life,
Avas a very interesting person to a student of fiscal history, for he
was exceedingly communicative as to his administrative career,
and remained to the close of his life a representative of that
financial school, which began with Huskisson and Robinson, and
was continued by Althorp. The principle of those persons was
to remit excises and taxes on raw materials, technically so called,
and to reduce them in the case when they could not be wholly
remitted, to such a point as would leave them available for pur-
poses of revenue. He was scared, however, by excessive remissions
of taxation, and was unable to discover that there were occasions
on which the entire liberation of an industry from taxation would
be followed by compensations in other quarters. He reduced, for
example, the duty on paper ; but he led the Opposition in the
Lords when that House rejected the budget in which the paper
duty was wholly repealed, an event which led to the latest
collision between the two Houses, and the passage of the standing
order under which the claim of the Lords to revise taxation was
peremptorily negatived. But Lord Monteagle was convinced that
he had taken a wise and judicious course, and he would dwell in
treating this subject, on the enormous length at which he spoke
in the Lords on the financial situation at this crisis. In fact, he
had a good deal of that temper which was nicknamed the finality
principle, which attempted to affirm that there were facts in
finance and politics which must be taken as finally settled.
The five years 1837-42 were of great financial difficulty. The
expenses of government, and especially of the services, increased,