In 1868 Gladstone appointed Robert Lowe (1811–92) Chancellor of the Exchequer, expecting him to hold down public spending. Public spending rose, and Gladstone pronounced Lowe "wretchedly deficient." Maloney notes that historians concur on that. Lowe systematically underestimated revenue, enabling him to resist the clamour for tax cuts, and to reduce the national debt instead. He insisted that the tax system be fair to all classes. By his own criterion of fairness—that the balance between direct and indirect taxation remain unchanged—he succeeded. Historians point out that this balance had never been a good measure of class incidence and was by that time thoroughly archaic.