er graduated form of the super-tax brought down so
low that every one who is not merely rich but comfortable should pay
his share, For example, any single man or woman with any excess over
L500 a year of unearned income, or over L800 a year of earned income
might well pay super-tax on that excess. The exemption limit might
well be raised by 50 per cent. for married couples (if their joint
incomes are still to be counted as one), and by L100 a year for each
child between the age of five and twenty-five. But all these figures
are mere suggestions, and the details of the scheme would have to be
worked out by Inland Revenue officials, whose experience and knowledge
of the practical working of such matters qualifies them for the task.
The broad principle is a special tax for the debt charge to be raised
direct from individual incomes with skilful differentiation, according
to the circumstances of the taxpayer, in the matter of the number
of his dependants, and also according to the source of the income,
whether it is being earned by exertions which illness might terminate
or received from invested funds, and therefore beyond the reach of the
"slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." That portion of the tax
that is required for Sinking Fund might be made payable, at the option
of the taxpayer, in Government securities at prices giving some
advantage to the holder. This form of special debt-charge super-tax
would enable the ordinary income tax to be reduced considerably at
once. Mr Edward Lees, secretary to the Manchester and County Bank, has
put forward a scheme by which taxpayers can buy in advance immunity
for so many years from so much annual income tax. If this suggestion
could be worked it might provide a means of quickening the debt's
repayment, though it looks rather like exchanging one form of debt for
another. But, in any case, it is urgent that the long promised reform
of income tax should be set in hand at once, so that it may be purged
of its present inequities and anomalies and set to work in peace to
redeem debt on a new and more scientific basis.

XVI

THE CURRENCY REPORT _December_, 1918

Currency Policy during the War--Its Disastrous Mediaevalism--The
Report of the Cunliffe Committee--A Blast of Common Sense--The
Condemnation of our War Finance--Inflation and the Rise in Prices--The
Figures of the Present Position--The Break in the Old Relation between
Legal Tender and Gold--How to restore it--Stop