=434. Results and later completion of the reform.=—The results of the reform exceeded anticipations. Not only did those industries benefit which (like cotton, for instance) had previously been taxed for the support of others, but the protected industries themselves gained by the revision of the laws. The export of woolen stuffs increased rapidly after the removal of the prohibition on the export of raw wool. The silk manufacture, which had made slow progress and secured only a small market under the system of high duties and prohibitions, advanced more rapidly now in a decade than it had done before in a century. The work of reform was, however, still far from complete; the tariff retained many incongruities and was felt still to be oppressive by the business interests of the country. The second stage in the advance to free trade was effected under Sir Robert Peel, who in 1842 secured the reduction of duties on 750 articles, and in 1845 abolished 430 out of a total of 813 import duties. Peel’s reforms left still a considerable element of protection in the tariff, and the final acceptance of free trade waited till Gladstone’s laws of 1853 and 1860, which lowered and then swept away import duties by the hundred, and left the English tariff substantially in its present shape. The system of “free trade” which England has since maintained does not imply a complete lack of import duties; more than one fifth of the total revenue from taxes is now yielded by the customs. Import duties, however, have been restricted to a very few commodities, and are “revenue,” not “protective” duties, in the sense that they do not encourage the production in England of anything which can be produced more cheaply abroad.