92 BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 



at least to as great an extent and in the same propor- 

 tion as the champagne people drink, or the powdered 

 footman they employ, or, in fact, as, high as we would 

 any other extravagant luxury '. It is indeed hoped that 

 we may be able to apply taxation so high that you 

 will give up misusing the nation's most precious com- 

 modity, and spend your surplus wealth on some other 

 form of amusement." 



Turning to the farmer, I would remind him that all 

 food wherever produced was to pay a substantial fiscal 

 duty. Such duty would pay its proper share of the 

 cost of the navy kept up to police our trade routes, 

 and also of the army necessary to ensure that we 

 should not again find ourselves in the precarious 

 position in which we did in the year 1917 owing to 

 our inability to prevent our enemy from constructing 

 U boats on land quite close to our shores. I would 

 arrange that the farmer paid such taxes on all his 

 produce, it being understood, for it is only fair, that 

 in assessing him his local taxation should be con- 

 sidered. This taxation on home-grown food could 

 then be remitted, and it is part of my scheme to do so, 

 under all or any of the following conditions. Firstly, 

 if there be danger of the prices of incoming food 

 stolen from virgin soil going so low as to penalize 

 intensive home production. Secondly, if there were 

 danger of prices getting so low as to prevent all 

 farmers paying their labourers a wage high enough 

 to ensure the country's having an adequate rural 

 population. The paying of a satisfactory wage to 

 good men would always be an imperative condition 

 of any remission of taxation on home-grown produce. 

 Or again, if for purposes of insurance against any 

 particular national danger or disadvantage it was 

 desired to encourage any particular form of produc- 

 tion, such as that of wheat, or wool, or some class of 



