pay a lower rate is fallacious. We are all agreed to tax the poor at
a _lower_ rate; we have now a section of advanced Radicals proposing
to tax the rich at a higher rate. One present candidate for
Parliament is even willing to tax people of L100,000 a year and
upwards at nineteen shillings in the pound. This of course, or
anything approaching it, is unpractical. But I have suggested above,
as a rough plan in accordance with the existing one, eight-pence a
week on incomes of L1 a week, twelvepence a week on incomes of L2 a
week, sixteen-pence a week on incomes of L3 a week and upwards. The
question may very fairly be raised, Why stop this process at L3? why
not continue the series and develop it into a mathematical law? This
might be done more easily with a sixpenny income tax than a heavy
one. To tax earnings and savings (that is an income tax) instead of
expenditure can only be carried a certain way; if the tax is large
enough to diminish saving and promote living up to one's income, and
at the same time to send capital abroad, its effects would be
serious. For a particular and noble purpose I have suggested sixteen-
pence in the pound (which we bore without serious inconvenience in
the Russian war); I should imagine twenty to twenty-four pence in the
pound about the maximum that could be imposed for any purpose--such
as the prevention of hostile invasion. It must be noted that more
than the maximum bearable cannot be put on large incomes, L100,000 a
year, etc., any more than on small ones. Indeed it is rather the
contrary; for persons with large incomes are usually the very people
who already invest largely abroad, and who could (and would) transfer
their capital rapidly out of the country if they were subjected to
anything like confiscation.

Instead therefore of proceeding _upwards_ in our income tax sliding-
scale we must proceed downwards. Taking sixteen-pence in the pound as