and it is instructive to compare it with the voluntary pacts of the German States and South African Colonies, and with their political results. In one important point unification was left incomplete. It was impossible in 1817 to equalize internal taxation in the two countries, though it was held desirable to do so, because Ireland could not have borne the higher British scale, and suffered enough under her own. Regard, too, was had at first to those important words in the Act of Union which guaranteed to Ireland such "exemptions and abatements" as might appear fair. But they were soon forgotten. Without any inquiry into the taxable capacity of Ireland, the stamp, tea, and tobacco duties were equalized early in the period, the enhancement in Ireland of the last duty from 1s. to 3s. on raw tobacco, and from 1s. to 16s. on manufactured tobacco, laying an exceptionally heavy burden on the Irish poor. Meanwhile the abolition, after the close of the war, of taxes representing about sixteen millions a year, and purely affecting Great Britain, gave a relief to her which Ireland did not feel. But it was not until 1853, when Mr. Gladstone extended the income-tax to Ireland, and raised the Irish spirit duty, that the principle of "exemptions and abatements" was most seriously infringed. Mr. Disraeli followed in 1855 with a further elevation of the spirit duty, which was finally equalized with the British duty in 1858, at 8s. a gallon; while in 1860 both duties were raised to 10s. In the seven years 1853-1860 the taxation of Ireland was raised by no less than two and a half millions per annum. It will be recalled that the great famine had taken place in 1846-47, and that between the Census of 1841 and that of 1861 the population sank from eight to six millions, while the British population rose from eighteen and a half to twenty-three millions. The statistical result of the increased taxes, therefore, was to show a rise in taxation per head of the Irish people from 13s. 11d. in 1849 to L1 5s. 4d. in 1859, while in Great Britain it rose only from L2 7s. 8d. to L2 10s. during the same period. Equality of taxation has never been wholly established, for to this day a few quite unimportant taxes are not levied, or are levied on a lower scale in Ireland;[101] but from 1858 onward we may regard the taxation of the two countries as almost identically the same.