worth considering as
long as it does not carry with it serious drawbacks.

It seems to me, however, that the drawbacks are very considerable.
In the first place, I have not seen any really practicable scheme of
redeeming debt by means of a levy on capital In so far as the levy is
paid in the form of surrendered War Loans, it is simple enough. In so
far as it is paid in other securities or mortgages on land or other
forms of property, it is difficult to see how the assets acquired by
the State through the levy could be distributed among the debt
holders whom it is proposed to pay off. Would they be forced to take
securities, mortgages on land, furniture, etc., as the Government
chose to distribute them, or would the Government have to nurse an
enormous holding of various forms of property and gradually realise
them and so pay off debt?

Again, a great injustice would surely be involved by laying the whole
burden of this oppressive levy upon owners of accumulated property, so
penalising those who save capital for the community and letting off
those who squander their incomes. A characteristic argument on this
point was provided by the _New Statesman_ in a recent issue. It argued
that, because ordinary income tax would still be exacted, the contrast
between the successful barrister with an Income of L20,000 a year and
no savings, who would consequently escape the capital levy, and the
poor clergyman who had saved L1000 and would consequently be liable to
it, fell to the ground. In other words, because both lawyer and parson
paid income tax, it was fair that the former should escape the capital
levy while the latter should have to pay it!

But needs must when the devil drives, and in a crisis of this kind it
is not always possible to look too closely into questions of equity in
raising money. It is necessary, however, to look very closely into the
probable economic effects of any suggested form of taxation, and, if
we find that it is likely to diminish the future wealth production
of the nation, to reject it, however attractive it may seem to be
at first sight. A levy on capital which would certainly check the
incentive to save, by the fear that, if such a thing were once
successfully put through, it might very likely be repeated, would dry
up the springs of that supply of capital which is absolutely essential
to the increase of the nation's productive power. Moreover, business
men who suddenly found themselves shorn of