,
that the owners of wealth have been able to avoid the conscription of
men. This, of course, is absolutely untrue. The wealthiest and the
poorest have to serve the country in the front line alike, if they are
fit. The proportion of those who are fit is probably higher among the
wealthy classes, and, consequently, the conscription of men applies
to them more severely. Again, the officers are largely drawn from
the comparatively wealthy classes, and it is pretty certain that the
proportion of casualties among officers has been higher during the war
than among the rank and file. Thus, as far as the conscription of men
is concerned, the sacrifice imposed upon all classes in the community
is alike, or, if anything, presses rather more heavily upon those who
own wealth. Conscription of wealth as well as conscription of life
thus involves a double sacrifice to the owners of property.

This double sacrifice, in fact, the owners of property have, as is
quite right, borne throughout the war by the much more rapid increase
in direct taxation than in indirect. It is right that the owners of
property should bear the heavier monetary burden of the war because
they, having more to lose and therefore more to gain by a successful
end of the war, should certainly pay a larger proportion of its cost.
It was also inevitable that they should do so because, when money is
wanted for the war or any other purpose, it can only be taken in large
amounts from those who have a surplus over what is needed to provide
them with the necessaries and decencies of life. But the argument
which puts forward a capital levy on the ground that the rich have
been escaping war sacrifice is fallacious in itself, and is a wicked
misrepresentation likely to embitter still further the bad feeling
between classes.

Nevertheless, Mr Bonar Law thinks that, since the cost of the war must
inevitably fall chiefly upon the owners of property, and since it
therefore becomes a question of expediency with them whether they
should pay at once in the form of a capital levy or over a long series
of years in increased taxation, he is inclined to think that the
former method is one which would be most convenient to them and best
for the country. This contention cannot be set aside lightly, and
there can be no doubt that if, by making a dead lift, the wealthy
classes of the country could throw off their shoulders a large part of
the burden of the war debt, such a scheme is well