The delight which has hailed the announced abolition of the Excess Profits tax would be even greater were it certain that it meant the inauguration of a period of fiscal repentance on the part of White-haH. But before we can be sure of My real reformation by Government, we must see the abandonment of extravagant schemes which tha nation cannot at present afford. The fact, however, that the Excess Profits Duty is to ga offers much hope for our indusvi While the war was in pro-and the genus profiteer had' come into his own, it was a good tax, and, instead of private individuals securing—everybody's money for themselves, the Government succeeded in getting a certain amount of it. Once hostilities were ended, however, the whole situation changed. The first thing was to rehabilitate our industries, and the most vital point was to leave them as little hampered as possible either by Government control or taxation. This the authorities failed to do. easy to see what has led to this new if not better way of thinking at this late hour. The returns of Excess Profits were all that the Government could desire in the first half of the present financial rv, but the position has been reversed during the past few months, and the Treasury is faced with the disagreeable duty of paying out a good deal of what it had previously collected. Evidently the Exchequer hopes to earn a_ little cheap gratitude by doing voluntarily now what later on it would he forced to do.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.