194 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



an axiom of sound finance to let the incidence of 

 taxation fall on the luxuries rather than on the neces- 

 saries of the nation. Alcohol, tobacco, spectacular 

 and all-absorbing games, constant travel, are luxu- 

 ries, and probably, in many aspects, very mis- 

 chievous ones. The rearing and education of children, 

 in a fashion appropriate to the positions they are 

 capable of occupying, is a matter of primary import- 

 ance to the State at all times, and particularly at the 

 present day. The cost rises rapidly with the import- 

 ance and responsibilities of the careers for which 

 the children are fitted. Neither a well-earned nor a 

 well-spent income is a source of taxation on which a 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer should look with a greedy 

 eye. As far as expense is responsible for the declining 

 birth-rate of the best stocks, it is certain that exemp- 

 tion from income tax of all moneys spent in any rank 

 of life on the maintenance and education of children 

 would in the end greatly benefit the one real source of 

 national credit, the composition and character of the 

 life of the people. It would be well, too, that the 

 graduation of death-duties should be transferred to 

 the taxes on legacies. It is the amount a man 

 receives, not the sum his father leaves, that should 

 be taken as the basis. A fortune divided among ten 

 children should be taxed less than one that goes to 

 an only son or daughter. 



Scholarships have their dangers when used to raise 

 those who win them too suddenly and completely out 

 of their natural class. But, when used to educate in a 

 suitable manner the abler children in all stations of 

 life, they can produce nothing but good, both to the 



