their money as they liked will be let off scot free." Certainly, it is
much to be regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have
let such a statement go forth, especially as he himself admits that
perhaps he has not thought enough about it to justify him in saying
so. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not time to think about
what he is going to say to a Labour deputation which approaches him on
an extremely important revolution in our fiscal system, it is surely
high time that we should get one who has sufficient leisure to enable
him to give his mind to problems of this sort when they are put before
him.

In the course of this review of the forms in which suggestions for a
levy on capital have been put forward, some of the difficulties and
injustices inherent in it have already been pointed out. Its advocates
seem as a rule to base the demand for it upon an assumption which
involves a complete fallacy. This is that, since the conscription
of life has been applied during the war, it is necessary that
conscription of wealth should also be brought to bear in order to make
the war sacrifice of all classes equal. For instance, the Emergency
Workers' pamphlet, quoted above, states that, "in view of the fact
that the Government has not shrunk from Compulsory Conscription of
Men," the Committee demands that "for all the future money required
to carry on the war, the Government ought, in common fairness, to
accompany the Conscription of Men by the Conscription of Wealth."

This contention seems to imply that the conscription of men and the
conscription of wealth apply to two different classes; in other words,
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