assimilated, though in regard to some taxes an equalisation was
effected, as, for example, in the case of tobacco, the duty on the
unmanufactured variety of which was raised from 1s. to 3s. per lb.,
while that on cigars and manufactured tobacco was raised from 1s. to
16s. per lb. The manner in which the change affected social conditions
in Ireland at this time may best be illustrated by the fact that the
taxes on commodities, which necessarily hit the poorest classes hardest,
rose from 4s. a head per annum in 1790 to 11s. a head per annum in 1820.
After the Consolidating Act of 1817 the annual taxation fell to about
five millions, abatements and exemptions being made every year. The
tobacco tax and the Stamp Duty of 1842, which realised about £120,000 a
year, were, it is true, equalised in the two countries, but for many
years the system of special treatment was pursued. To Sir Robert Peel
credit is due for having refused in 1842 to extend to Ireland the Income
Tax, which he re-imposed in England, and for reducing the duty on Irish
whiskey to its original figure by the remission of an additional 1s. per
gallon which he had imposed.

Soon after this the country supped full of horrors in the famine of
1846-1847. In the decade from 1845 to 1855 more than a quarter of
Ireland's population was lost. No sooner did she begin to recover from
the effects of this visitation than the Repeal of the Corn Laws dealt
her an almost equally disastrous blow. The absence of an industrial side
which she might develop, as did England, the almost complete dependence
on agriculture, joined to the enfeebled condition in which the lean
years had left her, made the adoption at this moment of the principle of
Free Trade--in her case--deplorable. Nor was this all. It was at this
moment that the opportunity was taken by Mr. Gladstone, at that time
Chancellor of the Exchequer, to reverse the discriminative policy upon
which Peel had so strongly insisted.