taxation, and the consequent huge debt with
which--it is already over L7000 millions gross--the State will be
saddled? Mr. Hoare answered the question by proposing a scheme of
taxation of what he called Rente, by which he meant all forms of
"unearned income"--"rentals from freehold and leasehold property,
interest upon loans whether public or private, and dividends on joint
stock companies or sleeping partnerships." He added that in his
opinion earned income above a certain figure might reasonably be added
to this category on the ground that it has, in some instances, very
much the same characteristics as unearned; the income of a "successful
professional man or clown or jockey or opera star" being due to
peculiar qualities; "and it would be no great hardship if earned
income above, say, a thousand a year for a married couple, with an
additional three hundred for every child under twenty-five years of
age were regarded as unearned, and taxed accordingly." Income was
thus the basis of Mr Hoare's scheme. Rente he regards as an agency
regulating distribution, and requiring to be constantly checked. "It
is," he says, "an elementary principle of social health, and economic
prosperity that the share of the national wealth enjoyed by the
Rentier, by the owner, that is, of unearned income, should not be
excessive," Most people who can follow his admirable example and take
a detached and unbiassed view of questions which affect their pocket
so closely, will agree with him In this opinion. The Rentier lives on
the proceeds of work done in the past by him or by some other person;
and it is not good for our economic health that he should grow too
fat at the expense of those who are working now, lest the latter be
discouraged and work with less spirit.

At the same time we have to remember that the work done in the past by
the Rentier or those whom he represents, has given us the plant and
equipment (in the widest sense of the phrase) with which we are now
working. If, therefore, we penalise the Rentier too severely we shall
discourage his future creation; the present race of earners, if they
see that those who are living on past savings are shorn too close
will be deterred from saving, will put their surplus earnings into
extravagant spending instead of into plant and equipment, and the
economic future of the nation, and of the world, will be _pro tanto_
less hopeful. If once our fiscal system is going to propagate the
view--alrea