After warning us that exceptionally heavy sacrifices must be faced, the general feeling is that Sir Kingsley Wood has let us down comparatively lightly, He has certain ly shown no originality. "An extra screw is put on such familiar milchkine as income-tax, estate duties, beer and tobacco. But he has allowed himself to be terrified by Labour into watering down the sales, or purchase, tax into an angmic wraith of its original form and, while heavier loads are put on those whose incomes have fallen off in consequence of the war, he leaves those whose incomes have been largely increased comparatively untouched. This is not only unfair on the middle-class, but it leaves in the hands of those who are seldom the wisest spenders, increased money to spend on a diminishing supply of consumable goods, which means rising prices and inflation. The truth fs, of course, that the ordinary ways of raising funds are no more applicable in war' than an army the size of our peace-time forces would be, New methods must be. found. One such, strongly urged by many correspondents, is income-tax on all incomes, starting, say, at a shilling in the £, and graduated upward. If democracy and the vote at 21 for both sexes is to be a really responsible system, then everyone should shave the cost of it, specially when the said democracy is fighting for its life.
The public asks for some evidence that the Government is doing all it can to cut out waste. As yet there is none, Of the millions that we spend daily, the Chancellor estimates that two millions go in running the administration, The debt service costs a lot, Dut not so much as to dispel the conviction that much of that daily two millions could well be saved. The Parliamentary Com~ mittee setup under Sir John Wardlaw-Milne to investigate Government expenditure has done a tremendous amount of work and has already sent in some recommendations. But nothing appears to have come of them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.