ion of necessaries
and of articles of general consumption. Even Tariff "Reformers" say
little about the revenue that their fiscal schemes would bring in. And
with good reason. For in so far as they secured Protection they would
bring in no revenue; we cannot at once keep out foreign goods and tax
them; and any revenue that they brought in would be most expensively
raised, because a large part of the extra price paid by the consumer
would go not to the State but into the pockets of the home producer.
Nor is it likely that any of the many schemes--of which Mr Stilwell's
"Great Plan, How to Pay for the War," is a particularly bold
example--for paying off debt by a huge issue of inconvertible
currency, will achieve any practical result. Not only would they
defraud the debt-holder by paying him off in currency enormously
depreciated by the multiplication of it that would be involved; but
they would also, by that depreciation, throw the burden of the debt
on the shoulders of the general consumer through a further disastrous
rise in prices, and so would accentuate the bitterness and discontent
already rife owing to the war-time dearness and all the suspicions of
profiteering and exploitation that it has engendered.

After all, this problem of the war debt, in so far as it is held at
home, is not one that ought to terrify us if we look at it steadily.
People talk and write as if when the war is over the business of
paying for it will begin. That is not really so. The war has been paid
for as it went on, and, except in so far as it has been financed by
borrowing abroad, it has been paid for by us as a nation. Whatever we
have used for the war we have paid for as it went on, partly with
the help of loans from America and from other countries--Argentina,
Holland, Switzerland, etc.--that have lent us money. These loans
amount, as far as they can be traced from the official figures,
to about L1300 millions. Against them we can set our loans to our
Dominions, over L200 millions (a perfectly good asset), and our loans
to our Allies, perhaps L1500 millions, which the Chancellor proposes
to write down by 50 per cent., and might perhaps treat still more
drastically. To meet this foreign debt we shall have to turn out so
much stuff--goods and services of all kinds--for sale abroad to meet
the interest and repayment. We have further impoverished ourselves by
selling our foreign securities abroad No figure has been published
giving any clu