Mr. Gladstone's Financial Legacy, 1869
Page [372]
Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Lowe
Hawarden, Jan. 9, 1869.—I have referred to my list of remnants; and I will begin with those that I tried in parliament and failed in: 1. Collection of taxes by Queen's officers instead of local officers. 2. Taxation of charities. 3. Bill for restraining, with a view to ultimately abolishing, the circulation of the notes of private banks. 4. Plan for bringing the chancery and other judicial accounts under the control of parliament. Here I had a commission (on chancery accounts) but did not dare to go farther.
The following are subjects which I was not able to take in hand:—
1. Abolition of the remaining duty upon corn; an exceeding strong case. 2. I should be much disposed to abolish the tea licences as greatly restrictive of the consumption of a dutiable and useful commodity. I modified them; but am not sure that this was enough. The B.I.R. could throw light on this subject. 3. The probate duty calls, I fear, loudly for change; but I wanted either time or courage to take it in hand. 4. The remaining [pg 651] conveyance duties, apart from railways, I always considered as marked for extinction. On this subject Mr. Ayrton has rather decided antecedents. 5. The fire insurance duty is sure to be further assailed. Though not as bad (relatively to other taxes) as is supposed, it is bad enough to be very hard to defend in an adverse House; and this is one of the questions on which it is not likely that the opposition will help to see fair play. The promises that liberal reduction will lead to recovery of anything like the old or previous revenue have always been confidently pressed by irresponsible men, and are in my opinion illusory. The tax is a tax on property: and, as we have too few of these rather than too many, what would seem desirable is to commute it; leaving no more than a penny stamp on the policy. This might perhaps be done, if it were made part of a large budget. 6. The income-tax at 6d., I suppose, presents a forward claim. 7. The commutation of malt duty for beer duty must always, I presume, be spoken of with respect; but the working objections to it have thus far been found too hard to deal with.
There is always room in detail for amendments of stamp duties, but the great case as among them is the probate. They are of a class which, without any legal knowledge, I found very hard to work through the House of Commons. I do not look upon the Act of 1844 as the end of legislation in currency; but this subject is a big one. Scotch and Irish notes would be hard to deal with until the English case is disposed of. I forget whether we have abolished the last of the restrictions on newspapers. If not, they deserve to be taken in hand, according to me. I have always wished to equalise the outgoings of the exchequer as much as possible over the several weeks of the year. Few incomes admit of this advantage in the same degree as the public income. It would make our “account” much more valuable to our bankers; therefore to us.
These, I think, were the main matters which lay more or less in perspective before me. I must add that I am strongly in favour of paying off the national debt, not only by annual surpluses, but by terminable annuities sold to the national debt commissioners for securities held by them against deposit monies. The opponents of this plan were Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Laing. I am satisfied that neither of them had taken the trouble, and it requires some trouble, to understand it. I admit them to be no mean authorities. Terminable annuities sold to others than yourself are quite another matter. I got into the law some power of this kind over post office savings bank monies to be exercised by the chancellor of the exchequer from time to time.
This is all I need trouble you with, and I have endeavoured to keep clear of all idiosyncratic propositions as much as in me lies. Of course such a letter calls for no answer. As this legacy opinion to you takes the form of a donation inter vivos it will, I hope, escape duty.