investment in a victory bond, a thing that is only a particular
name for a debt, with no productive effort behind it and indicating
only a dead weight of taxes. There capital sits like a bull-frog
hidden behind water-lilies, refusing to budge.

Hence the way to restore prosperity is not to multiply government
departments and government expenditures, nor to appoint commissions
and to pile up debts, but to start going again the machinery of bold
productive effort. Take off all the excess profits taxes and the
super-taxes on income and as much of the income tax itself as can be
done by a wholesale dismissal of government employees and then give
industry a mark to shoot at. What is needed now is not the
multiplication of government reports, but corporate industry, the
formation of land companies, development companies, irrigation
companies, any kind of corporation that will call out private capital
from its hiding places, offer employment to millions and start the
wheels moving again. If the promoters of such corporations presently
earn huge fortunes for themselves society is none the worse: and in
any case, humanity being what it is, they will hand back a vast part
of what they have acquired in return for LL.D. degrees, or bits of
blue ribbon, or companionships of the Bath, or whatever kind of glass
bead fits the fancy of the retired millionaire.

The next thing to be done, then, is to "fire" the government
officials and to bring back the profiteer. As to which officials
are to be fired first it doesn't matter much. In England people
have been greatly perturbed as to the use to be made of such
instruments as the "Geddes Axe": the edge of the axe of dismissal
seems so terribly sharp. But there is no need to worry. If the edge
of the axe is too sharp, hit with the back of it.