was absolutely greater than the sum of the entire expenditure of the
twelve months preceding". But this history before the war is nothing
to what has happened since. The following are the surpluses of
revenue over expenditure since the end of the Civil War:--

Year ending June 30. Surplus. (pounds)

1866 . . . . . . . . 5,593,000
1867 . . . . . . . . 21,586,000
1868 . . . . . . . . 4,242,000
1869 . . . . . . . . 7,418,000
1870 . . . . . . . . 18,627,000
1871 . . . . . . . . 16,712,000

No one who knows anything of the working of Parliamentary
government, will for a moment imagine that any Parliament would have
allowed any executive to keep a surplus of this magnitude. In
England, after the French war, the Government of that day, which had
brought it to a happy end, which had the glory of Waterloo, which
was in consequence exceedingly strong, which had besides elements of
strength from close boroughs and Treasury influence such as
certainly no Government has ever had since, and such perhaps as no
Government ever had before--that Government proposed to keep a
moderate surplus and to apply it to the reduction of the debt, but
even this the English Parliament would not endure. The
administration with all its power derived both from good and evil
had to yield; the income tax was abolished, with it went the
surplus, and with the surplus all chance of any considerable
reduction of the debt for that time. In truth taxation is so painful
that in a sensitive community which has strong organs of expression