literally by all classes of the community as a call to them to do
their financial duty. Now it has been largely translated into a belief
that no price is too high to exact from the Government by those
who have goods to sell to it, or work to place at its disposal. In
considering what might have been in matters of finance we have to be
very careful to remember this evil change which has taken place in the
public spirit owing to the short-sighted financial measures which have
been taken by our rulers.

Thus, when we consider how our war finance might have been improved,
we imply all along that the improvements suggested should have been
begun when the war was in its early stages, and when public opinion
was still ready to do its duty in finance. The conclusion at which we
arrived a month ago was that by taxation rather than by borrowing and
inflation much more satisfactory results could have been got out of
the country. If, instead of manufacturing currency for the prosecution
of the war, the Government had taken money from the citizens either by
taxation or by loans raised exclusively out of real savings, the rise
in prices which has made the war so terribly costly, and has raised so
great a danger through the unrest and dissatisfaction of the working
classes, might have been to a great extent avoided, and the higher the
rate of taxation had been, and the less the amount provided by loans,
the less would have been the seriousness of the problem that now
awaits us when the war is over and we have to face the question of the
redemption of the debt.

In this matter of taxation we have certainly done much more than
any of the countries who are fighting either with us or against us.
Germany set the example at the beginning of the war of raising no
money at all by taxation, puffed up with the vain belief that the cost