ABSTRACT
Blackwood’s offered its response to Peel’s financial measures in its April issue. It was doubtful of the wisdom of the new Corn Law, regarding it as a response to popular agitation by the Anti-Corn Law League and the rash promises made by the Whigs during the General Election of 1841. Only this, in its view, compelled some response from Peel. In these circumstances, it praised Peel for adopting a revision which promised to be moderate and stabilising in its effects.
The introduction of the Income Tax was similarly received as an unfortunate, though temporary, solution to the perilous state of finances facing the new government. ‘It will be supported, through the brief period for which we hope that it will be needed, in the same spirit of cheerful courage with which it was received’. This was the only justification for introducing the ‘most oppressive of taxes’, which was usually reserved for the ‘obnoxious burdens of war’. The magazine was thus willing to greet the ‘temporary sacrifice’ of such taxation, as a means of securing the consolidation of the welfare of the nation.
