Table_ cheerfully, "there is no insuperable difficulty
about that."

The first thing that strikes one when one examines these two schemes
is the difference in their view concerning the amount of capital
wealth available for taxation. Mr Gardiner made the comparatively
modest estimate of 16,000 millions to 20,000 millions; the _Round
Table_ plumps for 24,000 millions, and, incidentally, it may be
remarked that some conservative estimates put it as low as 11,000
millions. Thus we have a possible range for the fancy of the scheme
builder of from 11,000 to 24,000 millions in the property on which
taxation is proposed to be levied. But it is when we come to the
details of these schemes that the difficulties begin to glare. Mr
Gardiner tells us that millionaires would pay up to 30 per cent. of
their property, and that they would pay in what form was convenient,
in houses, fields, etc., etc. But he does not explain by what
principle the Government is to distribute among the holders of the
debt, the repayment of whom is the object of the levy, the strange
assortment of miscellaneous assets which it would thus collect from
the property owners of the country.

In commenting on this scheme the _Economist_ of September 15th took
the case of a man with a fortune of L100,000 invested before the war
in a well-assorted list of securities, the whole of which he had, for
patriotic reasons, converted during the war into War Loans. He would
have no difficulty about paying his capital levy, for he would
obviously surrender something between 10 and 20 per cent. of his
holding. But, "in exchange for nearly two-thirds of the rest, he might
find himself landed with houses and bits of land all over the country,
a batch of unsaleable mining shares, a collection of blue china, a
pearl necklace, a Chippendale sideboard, and a doubtful Titian,"
The _Round Table's_ suggestion seems to be even more impracticable.
According to it, holders of all other forms of property besides War
Loans would be assessed for one-eighth of its value--it does not
explain how the value is to be arrived at, nor how long it would take
to do it--and would then be called on to acquire and to surrender to
the State the same amount of War Loan scrip. To do this they would
be obliged to realise a part of their property or to mortgage it, a
process which would seem likely to produce a pretty state of affairs
in the property market; and a very pleasant state of affairs indeed
w