LAND A ND WATER 
February 17, igi6. 
THE NEW SESSION 
THE session which opened tliis week must o£ 
necessity be mainly occupied with linancial 
business. It is true that from various quarters 
other questions will be pressed upon the House. 
With the agitation for an Air Ministry we dealt last week, 
and in spite of rumours to the contrary there is good 
reason to hope that the (rONcrnnieut will negative this 
newspaper scheme. Possibly ten years hence warfare 
in the air may have developed to such a degree that it 
may be necessary for us to have air fleets almost on the 
same scale as our sea fleets, and in that e\ent it is possible 
that a separate air department might be ad\-isable. But 
for the needs of the present war, aircraft are required 
mainly for assisting the operations of the army, and it is 
essential that the aircraft employed should be controlled 
by the army. The navy also has its special equipment 
of air planes and seaplanes and these, in the same way, 
must of necessity be under na\ al control. Even if a 
separate Air Ministry were to be created it could not in 
any reasonable period obtain the aircraft necessary for 
a third service, because all the aircraft that wc can now 
build arc urgently required either for army or navy. 
Another question that may come up for discussion 
is the effectiveness of our na\'al blockade. I'ntil recent 
months, as is now generally admitted, our naval blockade 
was defective, and there is little doubt that the defect 
was ultimately traceable to the unwillingness of the Foreign 
Office to abandon its pre-war conceptions of the use of 
sea-power. Latterly the Foreign Ofhce has moved a 
long way, and though it may still be true that a consider- 
able quantity of goods is getting through neutral countries 
to Germany, we are undoubtedly ufing our naval power 
\-ery much more effectively than we were before. Whether 
there is still room for impro\ ement is i-ather a question 
of technical detail than of general principle. 
A third issue which may be raised, though from an 
entirely different quarter, is the question of the operation 
cf theMilitary Service Act. The pacifists, though com- 
pletely defeated in the House of Commons arid even more 
completclV discredited in the country, are doing their 
best to stir up resistance to military compulsion and may 
succeed in making a certain amount of trouble. Their 
proceedings will be sure to find some echo in the House of 
CommcJns, which still contains members hke Mr. Ramsay 
Macdonald, Mr. Philip Snowden, etc., who in defiance 
of the. wishes of their constituents, retain their seats and 
misrepresent those who sent them to Parliament. 
When Parliament decided to prolong its existence 
beyond the quinquennial period it ought to have intro- 
duced some provision for dealing with those member? 
whose moral claim to sit in the House of Commons has 
come to an end. The simplest plan would be to authorise 
a constituency by means of a plebiscite to compel its 
member to resign when he persistently follows a policy 
which is at variance with the wishes of his constituents. 
It is a subject that demands consideration. 
But the main work of the ses.Mon, at any rate for 
several months to come, is bound to be financial. Although 
the Government must continue borrowing to meet the 
major cost of the war, it is imperative that steps should be 
taken with very little delay to increase taxation, and 
already there are rumours of a very big Budget. 
The case for taxation may be \ery briefly stated. 
In the first place it has always been the honourable tradi- 
tion of this country to meet a very considerable part of 
the cost of each war out of current revenue. Undoubtedly 
it is right that posterity should pay part of the cost be- 
cause posterity will enjoy— at least so we hope -a very 
large part of the gain, yet it has always to be remembered 
that posterity will have its own burdens to face, and it is 
more than possible that those burdens will include new- 
wars. Even to-day we have not yet paid off half of the 
debt accumulated during the Napoleonic Wars. The 
second reason for high taxation at tiie present time is 
the great prosperitv of the countrv. That prosperity 
is ultimately traceable to the artificial demand for labour 
which the war itself has created. Nearly all the wage- 
earning classes are doing better than they have ever done 
in their lives before, and the open-handedness with which 
they are spending their money creates prosperity in all 
businesses that cater for their comforts, for their luxuries, 
and for their amusements. Thus there is no question 
that the great majority of the population could at Ae 
present time easily bear a much higher scale of taxation 
than has yet been imposed. 
By imposing extra taxes now the Chancellor of the 
Exche<iuer will be able to secure an increased contribu- 
tion to the outgoings upon war, and when the war ends 
he will be in a position to remit taxation ; whereas if the 
opposite course were adopted and our revenue were con- 
fined to an amount just sufticient to cover the interest 
on loans the end of the war would find us compelled to 
maintain the same rate of taxation indefinitely. As 
far as can be foreseen the chances are that when the war 
ends the present prosperity will end also, and there will 
be a general decline both in wages and in profits. A 
remission of taxation under such conditions would be of 
enormous assistance to the coimtry in the recovery of its 
economic strength. 
As regard the actual taxes which will have to be 
imposed, there will probably be no general disagreement, 
though each particular tax is certain to arouse particular 
opposition. On all hands there has been a demand for 
a tax on cinema tickets, theatre tickets and other forms of 
popular amusement. The amount that could be obtained 
is certainly appreciable and there is no tax in theory more 
justifiable. It may also be assumed that the scale of 
import duties will be very widely extended, not only for 
the sake of obtaining re\cnue, but also to check importa- 
tion. It is a matter of the first importance to decreac 
the sums which we have to pay abroad, and to diminish 
the demand upon our mercantile marine for carrying 
across the sea goods with which we could afford to dis 
pense. On this jioint it is satisfactory to see that with 
xexy few exceptions the keenest free-traders have ex- 
])ressed their willingness to suspend their pre-war theories 
in order to meet the exigencies of war facts. 
Neither taxes on anmsements nor taxes on imports 
will alone suffice to raise the additional revenue that is 
required. There must be a considerable increase of the 
income-tax. In September last it was anticipated that 
Mr. McKenna would put up the income-tax to 5s. in the 
£. He contented himself with fixing the general scale 
at 3s. 6d., which only becomes fully operative in the 
coming financial year. To this, however, has to be added 
a rising scale for super-tax, so that the larger incomes will 
be paying more than 5s. in the /, even without any fresh 
addition. Some addition there must be ; but if the 
wealthier classes are asked to give up more than a quarter 
of their incomes for the necessities of the war it is only 
right that the poorer classes should all of them, without 
distinction, make some direct contribution in proportion 
to their means. There is little reason to doubt that if 
the Go\ernment were to appeal to the patriotic instincts 
of the working classes there would be a general willingness 
expressed to accept an income-tax on wages as a neces- 
sary part of our war finance. 
Happily the whole position of the Government is 
x'ery much better than it was a few months ago. The 
successful passing of the Military Service Act has im- 
mensely strengthened Mr. Asquith's hands, and the 
complete failure of Sir John Simon to lead a revolting 
party has acted as a warning to other dis.'idents. The 
main fault of the Gox'ernment now, as in the earlier 
nronths of the war, is a la<k of confidence in its own 
strength. From the beginning, the country has been 
more willing to make sacrifices than the Government 
has beliex-ed. and if Ministers can bring themselves to 
treat with a little more indifference indiA du I grumbhngs 
in the House of Commons they will find : n e.iger response 
from the country as a whole 
