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should be substituted for the raising of more money on loan." To achieve this end, this pamphlet describes "three practical methods of conscripting wealth":

1. A capital tax, on the lines of the present death duties, which are graduated from nothing (on estates under £300, and legacies under £20) up to about 20 per cent (on very large estates left as legacies to strangers).

If a "death duty" at the existing rates were now levied simultaneously on every person in the kingdom possessing over £300 wealth (every person might be legally deemed to have died, and to be his own heir), it might yield to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about £900,000,000. It would be necessary to offer a discount for payment in cash; and in order to avoid simultaneous forced sales to accept, in lieu of cash, securities at a valuation; and to take mortgages on land.

2. Income tax and super tax, now varying from nothing in the pound (on incomes under £131; or under £231 with four children under 16) up to about 8s 34d in the pound on incomes of £100,000. Along with this must be counted the excess profits tax of 80 per cent of all excess over the business profits of 1914, and the mineral rights duty of an additional shilling in the pound on mining royalties.

SO as to

The income tax and super tax (if amended and regraded, remedy present injustices) might well. be doubled in yield, so as to "confiscate" annually an additional £150,000,000, almost entirely from the (estimated) 70,000 family incomes in excess of £1,000.

3. A third plan is that of the Bill which Mr. W. C. Anderson, M.P., has been, for over a year, vainly trying to bring before the House of Commons, for the sequestration, until further notice, of all unearned incomes. Under this plan all rents, interest, dividends, annuities, and annual payments for mortgages (apart from interest credited

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society accounts) would cease to be payable to the present recipients, and would be payable only to the Public Trustee, for transfer to the Exchequer. In this way all "unearned incomes" would be temporarily confiscated. It would be necessary for the Public Trustee to provide subsistence allowances for persons hitherto living on unearned incomes, and unable to obtain work at wages; and it is proposed that these subsistence allowances (after providing for all existing legal charges, moral claims, and even customary subscriptions to charities continuing to be met) should be at the same rates as the pay of the several ranks in the Army, from private to field marshal.

These proposals do not show a very close acquaintance with the practical facts of finance. To raise £900,000,000 by a capital tax would be something if it could be done, but the Committee has to acknowledge that the Government would have to take securities at a valuation in order to avoid simultaneous forced sales. This is obviously true, since, if all property owners were trying to realize property at once, it is clear that there will be no market to absorb their sales. But if all those subject to this form of conscription were to exercise this option, the Government would find itself possessed not of £900,000,000 to be spent upon the war, but of £900,000,000 worth of securities, from which it would in future derive a revenue of perhaps 45 or 50 millions. The third plan, by which the Government would seize until further notice all unearned incomes, obviously involves very great administrative difficulties, and the throwing of an enormous amount of work upon a Department which, like all others, is undermanned and overworked. Moreover, both these first and third plans suffer from the objection of being aimed solely at the owners of accumulated wealth; and so carry with them the bad economic

effect of discouraging that accumulation, which is only another word for refraining from spending, on which economic progress depends in time of peace, and from which alone war can be financed. The effects of the mere mooting of suggestions of a capital tax are already apparent: people of all classes are saying, "What is the use of keeping money for the Government to take away?" and they are spending their money on things that they ought to be ashamed to buy at such a crisis, stimulated in extravagance by crude and inequitable fiscal proposals. The second plan, for amending and regrading of the income tax and super tax so as to remedy present injustices, and then raising 150 millions by doubling them, is at least free from some of the injustices and difficulties involved by the first and third. Income, after all, is ultimately the only source from which taxation can be got, and equitably imposed income tax, applied to all classes of society, is the fairest and soundest method of raising money for the war. Much might be done in other directions, such as the long overdue increase in postal charges, for checking extravagances and setting free labor which is now used in carrying unnecessary letters and still more unnecessary circulars about the country. But to get a large revenue and to ration the buying power of the people, as will have to be done, it is clear that immediate reform of income tax and super tax is required, so that full use can be made of this great fiscal weapon. A suggestion was lately made in the House of Lords by Lord St. Davids that the Government, "simply from a desire to unite the country in the prosecution of the war," should "take the whole of the excess profits." This proposal had already been made by Lord Rhondda, and it is interesting that two distinguished capitalists and business men should advocate this

thorough-going suggestion. Nevertheless, we doubt whether it is, under present circumstances, likely to be economically effective. In the Economist of June 23d we published a letter signed by "Scottish Manufacturers," in which they stated that owing to the excess profits tax of 80 per cent, they felt that there was "no inducement" to undertake a transaction involving an outlay of £500 because their profit on it would be reduced by war taxation to £38. With such a spirit among our manufacturers, or some of them, it seems likely that if all excess profits were taken production might be seriously checked. By bad finance our successive War Governments have encouraged all classes in the view that war should bring profits with it, and so a bad spirit is abroad, which makes good finance difficult.

The Economist.

AN EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGN. When the full details come over by mail of the response to the great Liberty Loan, we are convinced it will be found that there have been two outstanding features attending the issue, one being the wide area over which the subscriptions have been spread, and the other the perfection of the organization which has rendered the flotation possible and has secured participation by such huge numbers. "Perhaps," said our Washington Correspondent, "the most gratifying feature in connection with the loan is its wide distribution. It is known that eight million individual subscriptions have been received, and it would not be surprising if, when the final returns are in, it should be found that the total reaches ten millions, a somewhat impressive figure, which ought to be proof to Germany that the hearts of the American people are in this war, and that they are offering their money

as freely as their lives to destroy the mad beast of Europe." Our Correspondent also referred to the extreme effectiveness of the advertising campaign on behalf of the loan.

Now we suggest that in this country, if the system of continuous daily borrowing is to be successful in financing the war to its conclusion, the publicity campaign will have to be quickly arranged on the same vigorous lines as those which have been pursued in the United States. On more than one occasion we have suggested that many of our best speakers in Parliament might be better employed at the present time in explaining to the community its great responsibilities with regard to the financing of the war, even than in their daily attendances at Westminster. We venture to think that if some party contest were on at the present time we should have our Parliamentarians electrifying the country with torrents of eloquence, designed to show that this and that party was the only one which could ensure the safety and welfare of the country! Why, then, when there are issues infinitely more important at stake than

The London Post.

the winning of seats for a particular party, cannot this same eloquence be outpoured to greater practical purpose in explaining to the people of this country just what is required from them in the way of personal effort, both in economy and the applying of its proceeds to the purchase of War Bonds, so that the power of civilian effort may be as great as that which is displayed by our fighting forces? Ever since the war commenced, this task of appealing to the community in the matter of War Loans has been left far too completely to the Press of the country, without the support which should have been forthcoming from public speakers throughout the country. Although the United States has only been in the war some few months, American citizens have been insistently reminded from pulpit and from platform of the duty and responsibility resting upon them, and the result is seen not only in the magnificent subscriptions to the last Liberty Loan, but, as is always the case when sacrifice and self-denial are called for, in an ever-increasing enthusiasm for the cause of the war itself.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

In "The Wanderers" Mary John-. ston with her unusual gift for interweaving history and romance has produced a story which is an interesting study of the development of the differences, both physical and spiritual, between men and women. Miss Johnston starts from the time when practically the only difference lay in the fact that women "made" children and men could not. From this period in aboriginal history, she develops her theme to the present day of many and perplexing differences, choosing for her settings those times and places

in history which best suit her purpose. Miss Johnston has shown a clear knowledge of the scientific side of her subject combined with the skill to make her characters living beings and the action of the story strongly dramatic. Houghton Mifflin Co.

"Familiar Ways" by Margaret Sherwood is a book of short essays in praise of the virtue of familiarity, that familiarity which does not breed contempt but is the particular quality which makes the dearness and sweetness of all common things. Thees says

entitled "House Cleaning," "The Vegetable Self," "A Sabbatical Year," "The Final Packing" are particularly charming, one for the love of home which it inspires, another for its sense of restfulness and still another for its humor and the last for the message of hope that, in one way or another, all the world is awaiting. Moments of pause from the strife of the world and a return to common things are SO essential to sanity that many will turn with eagerness and delight to "Familiar Ways," written with the same delicacy of touch and charm of style shown by Miss Sherwood in her other books. Little, Brown & Co.

If the world doesn't gather up the sunshine along its way, doesn't leap to its best and happiest ideals, the blame cannot be laid to the door of Orison Swett Marden; he has been preaching the golden gospel for, lo, these many years. His latest book,

"How to Get What You Want" is teeming with the same cheerful sermonizing. Beside the essay that gives the title, there are ten others; "Playing the Glad Game," "Discouragement a Disease," "The Force That Moves Mountains" and, after a group of similar topics, a deeply reverential one on "How to Find God." Mr. Marden's English has the old buoyancy and resonance; but his grammar has decidedly improved in his late volumes. His English was never so nearly correct. A smiling picture of himself prefaces the volume. Thomas Y. Crowell Co.

John Fox Jr. has a rare gift for seeing the romance in real life and making others see it with him. His sympathy is balanced by a sense of humor, and his optimism restrained by practical good sense, and one may laugh and cry unashamed, over the stories in his latest volume, "In Happy

Valley." As with so much of his earlier fiction, the scenes are laid in the Kentucky mountains, among the coke-ovens, in the two-roomed logcabins, behind the moonshiners' still, at the mission-school, or in the openair meeting house with blossoming rhododendrons for its walls, and against this primitive background these little dramas of love, hate, jealousy, forgiveness and self-devotion make an emotional appeal quite out of proportion to their length. Two of the stories "The Goddess of Happy Valley" and "The Hope of the Big Sandy"-follow eager adventurers into the world of cities, and test the strength of their loyalty to the Valley; the two strongly-contrasted types of capable women who divide responsibility for the mission-school appear in "The Marquise of Queensberry" and "The Compact of Christopher"; "The Angel from Viper" is a whimsical study of boy nature; "The Courtship of Allaphair" and "The Battle Prayer of Parson Small" are amusing character sketches"; "The Lord's Own Level" treats the most difficult problem of human relationship with delicacy and power; and "His Last Christmas Gift," in spite of its sadness, is one of the best Christmas stories ever written. Charles Scribner's Sons.

Sarah N. Cleghorn, who has made herself well known as a lyric poet with a profound appreciation of nature and a wistful comprehension of the gentler phases of love, has attempted in "Portraits and Protests" (Henry Holt & Co.) a rougher task, a sterner choice of subjects. In the center of the volume she offers a short collection of verses under the title "Of Country Places and the Simple Heart"-this is the Sarah N. Cleghorn one knows, singing beside her frozen rivers of Vermont, and the only change is in a clearer comprehension of life, a sweeter

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So, when her bonfires lighted hill and plain,

Did Bloody Mary think on Lady Jane.

So Russia thought of Finland, while her heel

Fell heavier on the prostrate common weal.

So Booth of Lincoln thought: and so the High

Priest let Barabbas live and Jesus die.

It is a delight to yield one's self so completely to the story-teller's spell as one may when reading Phyllis Bottome's "The Second Fiddle." The opening chapters find Stella Waringone of the three daughters of an enthusiastic Egyptologist to whom a precarious two hundred pounds a year seems a sufficient income-in a secretarial position in a London town hall; Marian Young, a girl of assured social position, beauty, and a marked talent for getting what she sets her heart on, betrothed to Sir Julian Verny, a high-spirited young explorer just back from the Arctic Circle; and Sir Julian on the point of offering his services to the War Department as secret agent. One guesses from the title what the outcome will be, but it is reached through devious ways, and after unexpected obstacles. Miss Bottome does not belong to the school of artists who can work only in neutral tints, and she allows us the satisfaction of cordial likes and dislikes. The intense feeling which dominates the relations of the leading charactersamong whom must be counted Julian's mother, Lady Verny-is relieved by light comedy among the lesser figures,

and the shabby household of the Warings, whose mistress buys "quantities of little books to teach people how to live, how to develop the will, how to create a memory, and power through repose" is an amusing contrast to "the ease and velvet and bells" of Amberley. The Century Co.

Patient research and indomitable enthusiasm have gone to the making of Mary Newton Stanard's "Colonial Virginia, Its People and Customs," which the J. B. Lippincott Co. publishes in a limited edition, beautifully printed and fully illustrated. The book is not a history, in the ordinary, conventional sense; rather it is a painstaking compilation of the materials of history, the fruit, as the author explains, of explorations among colonial county records, old newspaper files, collections of family papers, old pamphlets, ancient books long out of print, and old magazines of local history. The author was the first to undertake these researches-in which her husband, William G. Stanard, Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society and Editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography was able to give valuable assistanceand she has taken her data at first hand from original manuscripts or printed copies found in ancient publications. The result is a book far more vivid and personal than an ordinary history could be, because it depicts the sufferings, hardships and disappointments of the early colonists, not as viewed across the centuries, but as they seemed to those who experienced them. The value and the charm of the book are enhanced by nearly one hundred illustrationsportraits, views of quaint old houses, copies of old engravings, and pictures of antique furniture and decorations. The book is rich in personal and family details, to which a full Index furnishes a key.

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