Review of Reviews, l/S/06. 



Leading Articles. 



187 



TOWARDS A GRADUATED INCOME TAX. 



Mr. Ernest E. Williams contributes to the Finan- 

 cial Rcviciv of Rcvinvs a paper on Mr. Keir Hardie's 

 " Labour Budget," under the misleading title, " An 

 Impossible Budget." For though he objects to cer- 

 tain conjectures which Mr. Hardie has temerity 

 enough to express in figures, Mr. WiHiams is in 

 hearty accord with Mr. Hardie's chief proposal— -a 

 graduated income tax. It is a proposal Mr. Wil- 

 liams says he has been urging for years past, and he 

 rejoices to see it taken up bv the leader of the 

 new Party : — 



This proposal is a vast improvement upon the present 

 single tax method. However one may respect the rights of 

 Capital one cannot resist the argument that it is unfair 

 that a man who has to do actual work for every penny 

 of income he receives should be Qb)i?ed to hand over to 

 the State the same proportion of income as does the 

 man whose income is derived from the work of others and 

 accumulates while he sleeps or takes his pleasure. 



A NEW KIND OF IMPERIAL -PREFERENCE." 



He would add two improvements. One is Home 



and Colonial preference in a new form. He says: — 



There are. liowever. two direct fous (in addition to the 

 unduly burdensome rate of Is. on personal exertion in- 

 ■comes) in which Mr. Hardies scheme, in my humble view, 

 falls short of perfection, and of -a. perfection which may 

 easily be reached. In the first place, why not protect 

 national and Imperial industry by establishing three rates 

 ^ of income-tax — the first and lowest upon personal exertion 

 I incomes, the second on iucomes from Home ajid Colonial in- 

 ' -vestments, the third and highest, upon incomes from foreign 

 \ investments? We are all anxious nowadays to stimulate 

 heme and Imperial industry in its fisht with foreign com- 

 petition. Many of us see the best stimulation in the tariff; 

 but whether as additional to a tariff or alternative to it, 

 fiurely it would be well to encourage industrial development 

 within our own country and our own Empire by making 

 the income-tax burden lighter uuon Home and" Colonial 

 than from foreign investmentfi. Even Mr. Hardie and his 

 friends must have sufficient patriotism to desire the de- 

 velopment of industry at home in preference to foreign 

 countries, and this proposal of a lower income-t-ax upon 

 Home and Colonial investments will do somewhat towards 

 the attainment of that end without casting any burden 

 upon the working classes or incurring the Slightest risk of 

 increased cost of food or the other necessaries of life. Mr. 

 Hardie commends to us the example of the Colonies la dif- 

 ferentiating between personal exertion and investment in- 

 comes, and at tlie end of hie article lie quotes the distinc- 

 tion made in Queensland between home and foreign in- 

 comes. Will he not add to his proposed division tliat which 

 I have suggested? 



(ANOTHER PREFERENCE— FOR MARRIED MEN! 

 Mr. Williams goes on to advance a suggestion 

 -which ever) paterfamilias will assuredly welcome : — 

 The other direction in which I submit Mr. Hardie's 

 scheme of income-tax reform needs extension, and more 

 badlj' than that I have just mentioned, is in the granting 

 of exemptions to married and family men. At present, 

 if a man's income is no more than £160 a year he pays no 

 income-tax: and if his income does not exceed £400 a' yeiir 

 he is allowed an exemption of £160. The object of this 

 exemption is to enable a man t« have untaxed such an 

 income as is deemed necessary for his support. But how 

 foolish to allow this £160 worth of support to a single man 

 and no more t-o a mail with a wife and half-a-dozen chil- 

 dren! Obviously if it costs £160 to keep one man it must 

 cost more than £160 to keep one man plus one woman and 

 several children. A married man has. therefore, a claim 

 in simple arithmetical justice for an excmvtion in respect 

 to the members of liis family whom he 9up)M>rts. And it is 

 a claim which the State should gladly recognise. A State 

 . consists not in tracts of earth, but in human flesh and 

 blood. The strength of a State is measured by the num- 

 bers of men and women composing it. 



"TO ENCOURACE GENERATION OP CHILDREN." 



U is therefore the vital interest of the State to en- 



'>urage matrimony and the generntion of children. The 



present practice of the English State in regard to the in- 



come-tax is a deliberate discouragement. Though a m^a 

 take upon himself the States burden, and contribute to 

 the State's strength and existence by maijitaining out of 

 his own labour a wife and children— housing, feeding, 

 clothing, educating them without cost to the State — the 

 fruit of his labour is relentlessly taxed, even the part of 

 it which is necessary for tlie provision of tiie necessaries 

 and modest decencies of hia family's life. I propose that 

 in any scheme of income-tax reiorm every citizen shall be 

 allowed the existing £160 ot exemption as repi^esenting his 

 own necessities. £100 lor his wile, and £dO lor eacJi of hie 

 children. SureLv Mr. Hardie will see the wisdom of incor- 

 porating this reform in his income-tax proposals? 



DO IRISH PRIESTS CHECK SWEETHEARTING. 



In a paper in the Edinburgh Review on criticism 

 of life in Ireland, the writer enlarges on the power of 

 the priest. This power, always great, has been 

 increased by the elimination of the landlord classes, 

 and by the substitution of direct government from 

 England for the previous government by the Pro- 

 testant Irish. A novelist draws the picture of a girl 

 being denounced by the parish priest simply and 

 solely because she has been too fond of courtship, 

 of walking out in the evenings with tnis or that 

 young man. Otherwise she is quite innocent, but 

 once under the priest's censure, she is forced to leave 

 Ireland for America. The reviewer says: — 



Through a great part of Ireland pu'olic opinion, moulded 

 by the clergy, separates the sexes as far as possible. At 

 the church door, and wherever else they congregate, men 

 group on one side, women on the other. It is not well 

 thought of for people of opposite sexes to be seen walking 

 along the road together even to a market. The iwsition 

 certainly of some ecclesiastics has been made definite by 

 the refusal of certain bishops to allow " mixed classes " in 

 branches of the Gaelic League. ... On the whole public 

 opinion discourages whatever can be justly, or even un- 

 justly, set down as sweethearting. . . . It is tru« that the 

 Catholic clergy have put down dancing in many country 

 places, it is probable that they have at least done some- 

 thing to lessen the interest which the sexes talie in each 

 other, it is even true that some of them nave regarded the 

 Gaelic League as introducing daneerous dissipations; in 

 general, it may be said that they have heli>ed to make life 

 in Ireland more dull. It seems also true that they have 

 tichtened the curb a good deal of late .vears. possibl.v from 

 p.n advance of the ethical standard, but more probably be- 

 cause, as we pointed out. circumstances have greatly in- 

 creased their power. Yet we do not think that Mr. Moore 

 is right in blaming the Irish clergy for the drain of emi- 

 gration, 



MARRIAGE WTTHOrT ROMAXCE A SUCCESS! 

 The reviewer is good enough to give the other 

 side : — 



Xo doubt the answer of any avera-je Irish priest would be 

 that romance and the poetry of love-making are all very 

 well and quite admis^^ible for ladies and gentlemen, but 

 that his flock are peasant*, that nothing is more remote 

 from romance than the preliminaries of marriage in Irish 

 Ijeasant life, and that nowhere is marriage more success- 

 ful. Courting, he miglit say, is an amu.sement which has 

 in Ireland very little to do with marriage, which seldom 

 leads up to marriage, and sometimes leads to what he con- 

 demns. Therefore, in setting his face agains*. courting he 

 is doing nothing to hinder marriage. 



And the reviewer quotes the author's explicit com- 

 nient, the comment of a Protestant clerg\-man on the 

 spiritual teachers of another creed: — 



The Irish priests have schemed and lied, have blustered 

 and bullied, have levied taxes beyond belief upon the 

 poorest of the i>oor: but they have taught the people a 

 religion which penetrates their lives and which^ in its es- 

 sential features, is not far from the Spirit of Christ. Snch 

 religion is not to be taught by words. The man who im- 

 parts it must first underst-and it and possess it in his own 

 soul. 



This Protestant tribute to ' Sacerdotal and Po- 

 manist " teaching may be commended to '* No- 

 Poperv *' agitators. 



i 



