THE MORAL ASPECT OF THE FISCAL 

 QUESTION 



IT is a universal belief that material gain must not be sought 

 by methods which are detrimental to public morals : yet it is 

 assumed that the State has no moral function, least of all in 

 its international relations. That the State cannot make its 

 citizens good, but can foster morality by furnishing the con- 

 ditions for its exercise. Hence the State is never a merely 

 secular force ; and any change in industrial or commercial 

 conditions has moral significance for its citizens. 



The problem of Fiscal Reform is being wrongly stated, for a 

 main factor of material progress is left out. The economic 

 value of human qualities illustrated. The State is a moral 

 agent : Burke's view of it. Its significance to the individual. 

 The perversion of its powers to private uses. " Our Trade, 

 our Politics " a fundamentally immoral maxim. Illustrations 

 of its operation. 



The Fiscal Policy and international relations. Every State 

 rightly tries to be self-sufficient ; and all States are natural 

 rivals. But is the welfare of the one opposed to the welfare 

 of the others ? The question illustrated by reference to the 

 controversy between the individualist and the socialist. The 

 difference between the numerous and concrete relations of a 

 citizen to his State and the abstract and unarticulated relations 

 of independent States. Nevertheless, the conditions of their 

 welfare is the same, and they are never exclusive. Protection, 

 and Retaliation are " methods of barbarism," and not in the 

 line of progress, which is progress in interchange of advantages, 

 and in the realisation of the conception of a good for each 

 that is a good for all. 



