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CHAPTER XVIII 



Taxation and Wasteful Expenditure — Scope for 

 Co-operative Relief 



ONE of the most embarrassing problems that con- 

 fronts British Chancellors of the Exchequer is the 

 extreme difficulty of extending the taxable area of the 

 Kingdom. 



It is, moreover, perfectly obvious, that the tendency of 

 every Government, whether Conservative or Liberal, is 

 to throw the entire burden of any extra taxation that 

 may be imposed on to the well-to-do classes, and, 

 broadly, there is nothing to cavil at in this. 



If, however, this be the declared policy of Governments, 

 it becomes the positive duty of each successive admini- 

 stration to see that every facility be given to widen the 

 taxable area of the country and not narrow and restrict 

 it by unwise fiscal laws, or a policy of this kind must 

 necessarily become a gross injustice to the entire body of 

 British tax-payers. 



The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Asquith, 

 declared, in his Budget speech of April 18, 1907, that : 



" The income-tax, as it is one of the most productive, The In- 

 so it is one of the most delicate parts of our fiscal Tax 

 machinery. There is nothing like it to be found anywhere 

 else in the world. It produced this year something like 

 £32,000,000 to the Exchequer. 



