ABSTRACT
William Ewart Gladstone could assure Peel with a good conscience that he had never in his life had anything to do with them. Robert Peel had every occasion to congratulate himself on having secured so active a collaborator in the economic and financial labours of his Government; for it was in this province that the things were done that give his Ministry its great historical significance. Peel had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to abandon this view, which to him seemed a mere crochet. In order that he might not lose this youngest and most valuable of his collaborators he had to postpone for months the introduction of the Maynooth proposal. Considering the important part which the income-tax was to play in Gladstone’s later financial policy, it is remarkable that his attitude towards this tax was at first critical and disapproving.
