Vos Be OMe. dear 'One: remembers''tle ignominious bungling to' Norway,' the. collapse of firn, Dunkle after which we actually. had only four fully"equipped divi-why, Hiller didn't try to invade us then is "cone of the greatest of all mysteries; and-that aly: tHen outnumbered us in the Mediter-"ranean, probably by five to one and in North "Attica may, be by:20 to'one, and the danger to' Egypt Was'-very. real. We have come through far worse crises than the. Greek.
'And, there' are. consolations. "For. weeks, vantlepating the probable. loss of Salonika the Greeks had been carrying away every-'Waluable, What was' lett atthe, last effectually dynamited or burnt. 'The Gen wi ave found no sores tore of ny_kind, and hardly. any. people, The: Gre Se Maseres too. a sil cyst ltemakes. the' Red: Sea perfectly safe ('for-Amnétlean' Ships' and' ai" Abyssinia, nov. virtually." conquered, cane handed' over "bodily: to. Bailie Selassie, large-forces should soon, be: released from EastAtriea for ser Mice! elsewhere, 'These are" solid' considera.
ions to help us keep our feet oni the ground.
'But the time i.at hand when. we "shall inderetanding with Admiral mans Gould 'néverhave got-their big rein= pprettycertaln' that the Ger-
"forcement to, Tripoll- without using the pro-Necllon' of French territorial waters; and the 'Governiment has accurate information of the big consignments', of rubber, fats and other much-needed wax materials' which "Admiral Darlan is passing through Marseilles. from French: ships for the Germans, Darlan is describéa as being! Violently anti-British; he has never forgiven the sinking of the French men-of-war at, Oran j-he is very ambitious and; seems: to believe-that the bread of his ambition can' only be buttered on the Ger= man' side, People ave accepted the 10s. income tax'
"with: @ phlegm truly' britannic." "To judge by the newspapers you would think we welcomed it: Yet it beats hardly. on'vast nuimbers who, have had no. wartime: increase of salary, and, least equitable of all, it. bears worst. where there are children' Thus a correspondent of "The Times" points out that bachelor with £1,000 a year pays £381 tax and is left with £619: t0 spend on hiniself, whereas a. married man with: three children '{jgubays onthe same income £276, leaving £724 tobe spent by five people, ain average. of (42145 a head. pei 'Even this "ignores the fact that indirect taxation falls with even greater severity inthe family, since the essential. expenditure'
much greater than that of the, bachelor, ind expenditure, 1s now. almost a. synonym for taxation, On sinaller incomes the In~ idence. is even, harder. A bachelor with £300. year pays £66, a married man. with one child'£26, which is a big hole in £300.
On big incomes the taxation is. almost ludicrous. To have £5,000 a year free of stax you must. start with a gross £66,000 a {jyeat Mk. Holy-Hutchinson said in the House that he would presumably be. described rich City: banker" and he then showed exactly out of his director's fee of 21,333 a {year he would be left "with exactly" £83; The young oticer class will also be badly hit, and probably many sergeant pilots in the R.A.F;-who had thought of taking a commisslon'will drop the idea, With only 5s. a week to pay for. messing, living as well on Ahat as an oticer, and having. his uniform supplied free a sergeant-pilot is much better oft than a, junior. officer, Still people pay. up with comparatively wclitile complaint, Only as the Select Committee of: the House on expenditure brings forth every week some fresh example of 'oMiclal wastefulness—militia camps costing;,£80,000,000 instead of £20,000,000 they should have cost the Minister of Inform tion with a staff' of over 1,400 people, and "second-hand cars bought for the Government lat least 30 per cent. dearer than if the professional traders had managed the buying—{Veltizens do feel that if the Government taxes highly: it ought to see that we get full Value," "The. Times" says so very plainly. the "Daily Telegraph" "has put its price up-to. i%ed.-"The Times" as in the last war 34." Other-papers are reduced to a shadow lot thelz, former bulk. When paper was severely restricted, newspapers had to choose "between reducing size and reducing cireul tion: Size was everywhere cut down, but Yome managements decided to curtail, the number of copies printed rather than have fewer pages, "Having spoken above rather slightingly (by implication) of the: Ministry of Information the writer must not fail to hank the Director'of its News Division for the' compliments he recently paid to the] British Press, War or no -blitz the' papers have never failed"to come out, though often in great, dimeulties, Frequently owing to a bomb a"paper "has had to be printed in a rival's office, The Director went on thu:
"Tt 1s well that they have succeeded, for {he absence of newspapers would give' full 4oln to wild rumours, Fifth Columnists would Saulekly become active, causing despondency Reproduced
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.