Dot every new born infant knows hat the government makes a char for allowing him to prove that hi is alive, The great institution of marriage is also a source of income to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not to mention the still greater institution of death. It only remains for some super-Winstonian cha cellor to mulct us annually for the doubtful privilege of being alive. Practically everything else needs government licence or pays some, ether form of tax.
Of we play cards we pay. If we amure ourselves in public we pay If we eat sweets we It we drink anything but plain water we pay. Even vinegar must be licenced" If we smoke we pay. If we travel the government takes 5 per cent. of all {ares beyond a minimum, If we yell, buy, or lease a house we pay. If we sell or buy all manner of other' property we pay. If we draw a cheque, even for a charity, we pay. "Of we' make any sort of written agreement we pay. If we inherit we pay—anything up to eight shill ings in the pound of the inbe tance. If we swallow medicines we pay. we insure ourselves pai If we lend money we pay.
If wel ure auctioneers, Jawyers, pawn brokers, distillers, publicans, oF, about a hundred other things, we ly. For example, if we decide to very original and earn a living by keeping a home for inebriates the government will still, ogam: our inclination, insist on selling to tus a licence to exercise this remarks uble activity.
There is no getting away from government exactions; and though there exactions are all strictly legal, and formal receipts or beautifully engraved certifications are bestowed on us in return for our money, the jesuit in practice is much the same if we lived in a country, ridden ty. a governor who grew rich by simple plunder of the citizens.
Of course we are not supposed to notice' most of the exactions: that is why they are imposed. Yet we dlo notice them. If the government the borden of payers there would be an outery of the racked victims and the government, would certainly fall. But tobacco taxes bring in 50 millions a year; and assuming that smokers number 15 millions, that means that smokers pay' over three pounds apiece annually towards the cost of government, Drinkers pay nearly' 180 millions year, which comes over four "pounds per het of the entire population. Neverthe-tess drinking is a natural and a necessary function of the body. But perhaps we ought to be thankful that we don't have to pay, save very little, for the twin natural and necessary function of img.
Nearly all the foregoing is me cnicusly called indirect? taxation:
ich only moans that the individual instead of paying straight to the government, pays to other persons who pay straight to the government, The advantage to the individual is not apparent.
As for direct taxation, it is so indecent that one hardly cares to expose it in the columns of a news paper. I will only state here that Income-tax and super-tax payers, fond those who inherit the property' '"f'their dead are bled by the government. to te figure of nearly: 400 milions—or just twice the total Frgswar government income. may be said by the cheerful that-wer still live. But surely this is an exaggeration. We do not li Soexist, bemoaning; we exist, terroriit..thie arrival by post vf Tittle..yellow "'envelopes marked private'; wwe: exist, deprived of the incentive to live, The amount per head of taxes has risen in 11 years from three 11 shillings to 15 pounds, And government ex: risen from less than 200 millions to nearly 800] millions, Stay! Let me be. fa Debt interest is not strictly part of the cost of government. In 1914 debt interest was about 30 millions; to-day it is about 250 millions; that the price of government hss really risen from 167 millions to 440 millions—an increase of 163 per gent. Have other prices increased!
163 per cent? They have not. They have not increased by 100 per ent. Why has the price of government increased 0 much more rapidly than the price of anything else?
The plain answer to this question is: Because we are being governed too much, Lo! A certain family lived in a certain house which wi not perfect, and the head of the! family said: "This house must be enlarged and improved; Tt must be brought up to date with all the latest devices. Everything must be of the largest and best." And the members of the family raised their Noices and protested with one accord that they were poorer than they had ever been and that this was no time. to spend money in a house which at the worst was quite habit But the head of the family went obstinately forward with his enlargements and his improvements, and the members of the family had pay in spite of their poverty The head of the family, whether from pride or stupidity or both, had not grasped the first elements of The house is the structure of British government, and the istry is the head thereof. The Parable is a true one, except in this eapect—that it may be doubted whether our governmental enlargements make for comfort and whether cements really improve.
"Trade is bad," says the Ministry, "Therefore we will add to the burden of the populace and officials shall multiply in the land." That what it comes to, admit that during the last two or three years some cuts' have been made in expenditure, but the spirit animating expenditure is the same, the net result is—what T have tated it to be. What is needed is fa change of spirit. And sooner or later the change of spirit must be Drought about. British ministries cannot behave for ever like a toman in a hat shop who tells herself that she positively must have a new and gets it, without first looking. a the contents of her purse, The origin of the vast and grotesque unwisdom which has me spired the antics of post-war gov-croments is twofold. First. they are infected with the war-engendered habit of throwing money about. 'The have not yet perceived that was (more or less) laudable in time of war is utterly reprehensible in time of peace, And second, they are out' to buy votes. - This passionate desire for votes is not peculiar to the ians now in office. It is com to all politi all demo-countries—that is to say, in all countries where power depends fon votes. In old' days votes were bought with money, and rivals bid inst one another in cash bribes and cash corruption. Tt was an evil practice; and in the end was" put down by Inv. But the rew practice also is evil, and it cannot be put down by law.
The new practice' consists is bribing and corrupting: by flattery, by lies, and by promises which are false because the candidates who make them know that even, if they the results foretold. The esteem folfited they will never produce all parties go about the country. spreading the most dangerays of all Political" illusions—namely, the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.