, in its spirit and
in its practical effect, would be a tremendous reinforcement, almost
like a new army coming up at the end of the day, upon the side of all
those forces and influences which are fighting for the life and health
and progress of our race?

In the speeches which I have made about the country since the Budget
was introduced I have explained and defended in detail the special
financial proposals upon which we rely to provide the revenue for the
year. You are, no doubt, generally acquainted with them. There is the
increase in the income-tax of twopence, the further discrimination
between earned and unearned income, and the super-tax of sixpence on
incomes of over L5,000 a year. There are the increases in estate
duties and in the legacy duties, and there are the new duties on
stamps; there is the tax on motor-cars and petrol, the proceeds of
which are to go to the improvement of the roads and the abatement of
the dust nuisance; there are the taxes on working class
indulgences--namely, the increase in the tax on tobacco and on whisky,
which enable the working man to pay his share, as indeed he has shown
himself very ready to do; there are the taxes on liquor licences,
which are designed to secure for the State a certain special
proportion of the monopoly value created wholly by the State and with
which it should never have parted; and, lastly, there are the three
taxes upon the unearned increment in land, upon undeveloped land, upon
the unearned increment in the reversion of leases, and then there is
the tax upon mining royalties.

Now these are the actual proposals of the Budget, and I do not think
that, if I had the time, I should find any great difficulty in showing
you that there are many good arguments, a great volume of sound
reason, which can be adduced in support of every one of these
proposals. Certainly there is no difficulty in showing that since the
Budget has been introduced there has been no shock to credit, there
has been no dislocation of business, there has been no setback in the
beginning of that trade revival about the approach of which I spoke to
you, when I was in Leicester at the beginning of the year and which
there are now good reasons for believing is actually in progress. The
taxes which have been proposed have not laid any burden upon the
necessaries of life like bread or meat, nor have they laid any
increased burden upon comforts like tea and sugar. There is nothing in
these tax