New Age, Vol.17, No.22, Sept. 30, 1915
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r NOTES OF THE WEEK . OF LOVE(Chapters XXVI-XXVIII). By Stendhal FOREIGNAFFAIRS By S. Verdad . (Translated by P. V. Cohn) . THE PROSPECTSOF THE GUILD IDEA.--IV. By VIEWS AND REVIEWS:WORK AND WOMEN.By Maurice B. Reckitt . A. E. R. PASTICHE.By Peter Pence, P. Selver, Peter Pas- GILDERSOF THE CHAINS.-III : CHARLESGARVICE. tiche, Triboulet, L/Cpl. James Roberts . By Ivor Brown . CURRENTCANT . MR. LLOYDGEORGE AGAIN. By J. M. Kennedy LETTERSTO THE EDITORfrom Howard Ince, THEEND OF ROMANTICISM.By Ramiro de Maeztu George Raffalovich, Lalor Mitchel Laurence LETTERSFROM RUSSIA. By C. E. Bechhofer . Welsh, C. H. Norman, Winifred Horrabin, IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS. By Alice Morning . A Working Man, P. V. Cohn . READERSAND WRITERS.By R. H. C. PRESSCUTTINGS . ~ ~ ~~~ ~~~-~~~__~~ ~~~~~- But after three years, if even the cost were borne by I savings alone, our wealthy classes would still have two- THEREis no doubt, we suppose, that England is the thirds of their pile intact. And what a war to finance! wealthiest country in the world? On occasion there is A war for the maintenance of national power, chiefly no harm in saying so, though perhaps the week of the in the interests of the plutocracy itself; a war to con- Budget is not the best occasion. Except when sacri- serve their right to exploit the earth ; a war to secure our wealthy classes in their possessions against the com- fices are in demand, our wealthy classes themselves take petition of German plutocrats; a war, moreover so a pride in their wealth; and love to point an imaginary popular for better reasons that millions of poor men finger at Envy gnawing its bones in foreign countries. offer to lay down their lives in it--ten per cent. of the Richer than Babylon, richer than Rome, the plunder plutocracy’s mere savings, even twenty or thirty per and the labour of the world have been poured into the cent., would not be imagined too high a price to pay laps of the plutocracy. Not even themselves can count when “honour” such as this is at stake. But how how rich they are. Statistics of enormous dimensions, different in fact has been the spectacle we have seen. beyond anybody’s power to realise, still pant miles A year of war has cost nearly a thousand millions, of behind the facts. Our wealthy classes look at them which sum nearly the whole has been raised on loan at perspiring in the rear and smile complacently. The interest. Far from giving the sums required to carry great Sir Leo Chiozza Money, wallowing in the figures on their war, our plutocracy has not even lent them to the nation for nothing. Almost every penny of the cost of other men’s wealth, modestly calculates that the savings of our men of money amount to sixteen thousand is to be repaid them with interest when the war has millions; and it is certainly short by some hundreds of been won for them. +** milIions at least. Four thousand millions, in addition, are invested abroad, more than half in the two Americas This fundamental niggardliness of our wealthy where no great war comes. This at a round five per classes Mr. McKenna’s Budget does nothing to shame, cent. (a liberal under-estimate) brings in two hundred still less to change. On the contrary, and in despite millions a year. Add two-thirds of our total national of the congratulations that appear to have reached production of twenty-€our hundred millions, and it will him, his Budget actually aggravates the disproportion be seen that when they boast most our wealthy classes of the contributions made by our poor and wealth). still do not boast beyond their means. England has classes respectively. Taxation instead of loans, VI e indeed the richest plutocracy the world has ever seen. have it is true, advocated since the war began. But it *** was naturally in our minds that the class that could raise the loans was likewise the class that could provide It would appear from these facts that nothing would the taxes. If the lending ability of one-fifth of our be easier than to finance a war in laughing competition population is to the lending ability of four-fifths as with any nation in the world. Not only has our fifteen hundred is to nothing, it surely follows that the plutocracy much to be thankful for, but above the taxable margin of the two classes is in the same pro- plutocracies of every other country it has much to be portion. What can be borrowed can be given or taken ; thankful with. What if a necessary, honourable and but where there is nothing to borrow there is nothing glorious war should cost fifteen hundred millions a year. to be given or taken. An analysis of the present Budget Fifteen hundred millions is less than ten per cent. of shows, however, that rather than pay the cost of the the accumulated capital of one-fifth of our population. war, our wealthy classes are prepared to employ the Any other country-Germany , for example-at the same Chancellor of the Exchequer to extract blood from a rate of expenditure might find its savings being stone. One fifteenth of the cost of the war is now diminished annually by a third. In three years of war to be raised by taxation; but of this fifteenth a good half every penny of reserve would have been exhausted. is to be paid by the working classes. What notion of equity can our plutocracy entertain to find it possible attempting to make up their taxes by increasing their in full daylight to rob the poor in this fashion? For income. Their employers know this very well. And, the fraud is barefaced and must be obvious to the most again, the cost of living is now so much above the intelligent Labour Member of Parliament. Fifteen hun- normal that the coincidence of a fresh tax with a de- dred millions lent to the nation at interest and so se- crease of real wages (or shall we say salary?) doubles cured; with half the taxation shouldered upon the poor their misfortune. If the forty per cent. rise in the cost ----our wealthy classes have done very well with their of living were unavoidable in the nature of things, and motto of Business as Usual ! * the cost of the war could be more conveniently met by *** no other class, this class, like every other below the plutocracy, would brace itself to lift its own weight The plea has been made that, since it is a national rather than imperil ?he victorious issue of the war. war, every class in the nation should bear its share But as it is, not only, Sir Leo, do we know that the of the cost. But this is a perversion of justice in view wealthy classes could better afford to pay the whole of the Circumstances. For, in the first place, as we cost of the war than the small salariat any part of it; know, the distribution of wealth brought about by capi- but the galling fact is also known that out of the in- talist industry is such that no equalisation of burdens creased cost of living the already wealthy are becoming is either right or possible; and, in the second place, the wealthier. Mr. Runciman may say what he pleases, sharing must needs be, and in fact is, most inequitable hut everybody can give him the lie when he asserts that The principle of sharing is indeed utterly out of the Government has done all that can be done to keep place in the problem we are considering. Sharing is a the cost of living down. Not only is there no reason, proper principle to apply in a society of equals; but save profiteering, that prices should have risen forty in a society of unequals it is a means of injustice. In per cent. ; but there is no reason, save fear of the such a society, on the other hand, the proper principle profiteers, why the Government should not bring them to apply is that of placing the burden upon the shoulders down by at least thirty per cent. That it has not done of those best able to bear it ; and whose shoulders these so is, as we say, a reason for not taxing afresh the are, Sir Leo has already told us. It is characteristic, class that most suffers by the neglect. Yet it is just however, of our wealthy classes to employ ethical the class that has been already mulcted in the cost of phrases as best suits their purses. When plunder is living by the profiteers that is now singled out for in sight, to him that hath is the rule of distribution; mulcting in taxation by the Government. but when sacrifice is in demand, from him that hath not is their chosen motto. And look now at their notion *** of sharing ! Being in possession between them of two- thirds of the annual income of the country (savings and Mr. McKenna’s apologia for the wealthy man with investments quite apart), two-thirds of the taxation to an income (think of it !) of a hundred thousand a yeas be borne would manifestly appear to be the very mini- is one of the most irritating we have ever read. It is mum that justice would impose upon them. We say the playing with matters of national life and death. “I am minimum because even this assumes what cannot be not sure,” he says, “that, having regard to the charges allowed, namely, that the existing apportionment of the which many very rich people have assumed, to the national income is fair.