model of lucid statement and sane argument, comes opportunely to make people think. He shows that many of our troubles arise from the reluctance of Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George to impose heavy war taxes during the first year of the war. They chose the seemingly easier way, which was also the German way, of financing the war from loans, which, it was comfortably assumed, posterity would pay. Unfortunately, as it has turned out. the real burden has not been shifted from the back of the present generation. The taxpayers, during the first year of the war, spent their surplus income on non-essentials instead of being required to give it to the government. The armies of munition workers received high wages, out of borrowed money, and spent them freely in competition with the wealthier classes. As the production of goods for the home market could not be increased, in view of the government's immense demands on behalf of the navy and army, prices naturally rose rapidly after October, 1914. It was to be expected that foodstuffs and other necessaries would become dearer, as the fighting men had to be supplied. But prices generally need not have risen if the consumption of non-essentials had been discouraged by heavy taxation. As it was, prices went up higher and higher, wages rose in proportion, the State had to pay far more for everything than it need have done, and the taxpayer, while apparently escaping from war taxes for the time being, was assuming far greater liabilities than he dreamed of. The 'profiteering,' of which there has been and still is much random talk, was in the first place the natural result of a mistaken financial policy and of the crazy motto 'Business as usual' during the early months of the war. When Mr. McKenna succeeded Mr. Lloyd

George as Chancellor of the Exchequer and began seriously to increase taxation in September, 1915, it was too late to repair the fatal error of the preceding year.

Mr. Allen disproves the current assertion that the propertied classes' have profited by the war. The manufacturers working for the government, and, of course, the munition workers, miners, and others, have profited greatly. "The war debt has been incurred mainly in order to pay inflated rates to the wage-earners, not to pay inflated profits to the owners of property.' Owners of land and houses seem to have gained a little, in so far that the money value of their property is larger than before. But those whose savings were invested in gilt-edged securities have lost about half what they possessed in 1914, apart altogether from the heavy income tax and super tax, which have hit them very hard. Money, through excessive inflation by the issue of paper, now has little more than half its pre-war value as expressed in goods. The war has in fact made a silent but most drastic levy on capital.' The suggestion that the national wealth has increased from £16,000,000,000 to £20,000,000,000 during the war, and that the excess could be applied to the reduction of the debt, is and must be misleading. A moment's reflection will show that a country engaged in a world-war involving an expenditure of millions a day could not possibly grow richer in the process. If that were so, Germany and Austria, besides ourselves, ought to be exceedingly prosperous just now. Indeed, if war were a short cut to national wealth, the task of the League of Nations would be hopeless at the outset. What has happened is that the British paper sovereign has come to be worth ten shillings, at the old peace standard, and the

'propertied classes' accordingly have. lost half their capital. Mr. Allen supports his argument by reference to the super-tax return of October last, which shows, if allowance be made for higher income tax and reduced purchasing power, that the net income of super-tax payers with over £3,000 a year declined from £207,000,000 in 1914-15 to £114,000,000 in 1916-17. The Bankers' Magazine list of three hundred and eighty-seven select securities for the same date showed a decline in the market value from £3,370,709,000 in July, 1914, to £2,794,542,000, which, allowing only at third for the fall in the value of money, represented an actual loss of nearly half the total. Capital has not benefited by the war. The proposed 'levy on capital' is objectionable for many reasons. Mr. Allen at any rate shows that it cannot be supported on the ground that the capitalist has profited by the conflict that has cost us so much.

There is only one safe way of dealing with the debt. That is to increase the taxes and to work harder in order to pay them. Mr. Allen, who, as Honorary Secretary of the Committee appointed by the Economic Section of the British Association, has given much time to the study of war finance since 1915, is not content to criticize, but puts forward a scheme for an improved income tax. He rightly main

tains that every citizen ought to pay a direct tax, and that it is an undemocratic system under which only the minority pays. He starts from the minimum of £75 a year on which a single man can live, and would tax all incomes above that level, allowing the abatement of £75 to every taxpayer. He would give a further abatement of £50 to the married man, with an abatement of £25 for each child or dependent. With these deductions, he would tax the first £500 of all incomes at a uniform rate of 4s. in the pound, and the second £500 at a uniform rate of 68. in the pound, with a graduated increase on incomes over £1,000. The plan has merits, especially in its comprehensiveness, its elasticity, and its very just discrimination in favor of the man with a wife and family. Mr. Allen is inclined to disapprove of the distinction between 'earned' and 'unearned' incomes, but he suggests that the rate for 'earned' income should be a fifth less than for unearned.' The reform of the income tax is long overdue, and must soon be taken into serious consideration. Some such plan as Mr. Allen's would distribute the burden more fairly, though we should add that he contemplates a heavier tax than that which is now in operation, yielding nearly £500,000,000 a year, or a sixth of the whole national income.

The Spectator

THE Education of Henry Adams, published in England by Constable, has already attracted there unusual attention. In addition to the paper from the Spectator recently printed by THE LIVING AGE, there have been long reviews by Moreton Frewen and Shane Leslie. The following paragraph is from the pen of Edmund Gosse.

'No greater contrast can be conceived than that between the rustic contentment of "Uncle Remus" and the world-weary discontent of Henry Adams. The Education was written in 1905, and a few copies were privately printed and much discussed; the author being now dead, it is given to the world, to which it will probably be what Wordsworth calls a thankless boon. Henry Adams was oppressed from early childhood by the power and multitude of his family, which was all compact of statesmen and diplomatists. He was the grandson of one President of the United States and the great-grandson of another; his father, whose fourth son he groaned at being, was a Vice-President and Minister to the Court of St. James's. Henry Adams was overwhelmed by the activity and public prominence of his relatives; "a cruel universe combined to crush a child," he puts it, rather melodramatically. His autobiography is a very ambitious attempt to revenge his own individuality, to struggle up into the outer light through the choking pressure of public surroundings. It is extremely intelligent and presents a curious and unusual attitude of mind, but the strain of its sarcasm is painful, and the effect of it disconcerting. Henry Adams tasted all the wisdom of the world, and found it vanity.

'La Rochefoucauld says that "If we had no pride ourselves we should not be always complaining of the pride of others." Henry Adams was a successful and an assiduous historian, but he scarcely speaks of his own writings; he was an admired professor at Harvard, but he tosses his work there aside with a sneer. Competent as he proves him

self, there is yet a taint of false humility in his excess of candor. He was secretary to the American Embassy of his father in London through the dark years before and during the Civil War. The position was a trying one, yet it hardly justified the venom with which Henry Adams speaks of English society and of the English race in general. In social relations he had the taciturnity of those who are sensitive to excess, and he found the cheerfulness of our race insupportable. The Education of Henry Adams is a book which will be read with curiosity, for its intelligence, its penetration, and the broad cosmopolitan experience of its author, but it will be read with pain. It is the sombre revelation of a nature hardly master of itself.

'From a lower point of view, it suffers from two disadvantages. First, certain affectations, such as invariably speaking of the author in the third person. Secondly, the refusal, from sheer haughtiness, to indulge the curiosity of the reader about innumerable persons of importance whom the author had known. For instance, we are told in a single casual phrase, that Henry Adams visited Robert Louis Stevenson "under the palms of Vailima," but not another remark is vouchsafed.

'Even more exasperating is the statement that he was "much in Lord Robert Cecil's house in the days of his struggle and adversity"—and not a word more. This must have been between 1861, when Henry Adams arrived in England, and 1865, when Lord Robert became Lord Cranborne, a most interesting and obscure period in the career of the future Lord Salisbury. These reticences on the part of Henry Adams are the more tiresome because on the very rare occasions when he deigns to describe, he is admirable. Nothing could be better done than his picture of a house-party at Fryston in 1862, where he met Swinburne, Stirling of Keir, and Laurence Oliphant. But even this is spoiled by the autobiographer's

self-consciousness. Houghton and his guests.were evidently as kind as possible to the young diplomatist all the time, but Henry Adams was sure that they were looking upon him as "an American-German barbarian ignorant of manners"! Thus gratuitously does pride turn its knife in its own bosom.'

APROPOS of the recent troubles in Egypt, the Contemporary Review prints an interesting note by Miss M. E. Durham, whose 'Travels in Trueland' was recently reprinted in THE LIVING AGE. The native Egyptian, the despised 'Gyppy' is peu sympathique to most people, but, after all, he ought to have fair play.

'I was in Egypt from November, 1915, to April, 1916, and can confirm Dr. Haden Guest in his statement that it is to our own treatment of the Egyptians that we owe the present trouble. The authorities were certainly to blame in landing Colonial troops in Egypt without carefully instructing them as to the population they would meet there. So ignorant were numbers of these men that they imagined that Egypt was English, and that the natives of the land were colored intruders. "Why were these niggers allowed in here at

all."

'More than one Australian said that he would clear the lot out if he had his way. They treated the natives with cruelty and contempt. In the canteen in which I worked a very good native servant was kicked and knocked about simply because he did not understand an order given him by a soldier. An educated native in the town was struck in the mouth, and had his inlaid walking stick forcibly snatched from him by a soldier who wanted it. More than one English resident said to me: "It will take years to undo the harm that has been done here by the army." Personally I felt that were I an Egyptian I should have spared no effort to evict the British. I felt ashamed of my country bitterly ashamed. The opinion of the native for the soldier was amusingly illustrated by a small conversation book, one phrase of which was to the effect: "You fool. What for you spend all your money on beer?" And a dialogue with a beggar which

ended: "I am poor; I am miserable"; to which the Briton replied: "Go to hell.”

'I spoke with great severity frequently to the soldiers, telling them that by their conduct they were proving themselves the enemies of England; that the Germans maltreated the enemy, but that they were attacking their own side and would make enemies. This surprised them very much. They were absolutely ignorant of the situation.

'To make matters worse, for the first few days after the troops arrived in quantities, the drink shops were all open all day, and the unlovely results filled the natives with disgust and contempt. It was reported, I do not know with what truth, that drunken men had snatched the veils from Moslem women. The tale was believed by the natives.

'Small wonder if they hate and dread us.'

THE Soldier who is thirsting for a return to civilian life simply for the chance that it will afford him to fight his company sergeant unpunished, is a stock figure in army jokes and army life. But suppose that the private soldier after his return to 'civies,' undertakes to bring suit against his superior officer, for wrongs done him while in the army?

A case of this nature is now before the English Courts. Says the Observer: ‘Legal arguments were continued in the King's Bench Division with reference to the case in which Mr. Christopher Heddon, solicitor, of Ripon and Harrogate, is seeking damages from his former commanding officer in the R.A.S.C., Major G. C. Evans, for alleged slander, malicious prosecution, and false imprisonment. Major Evans denied all the allegations, and urged that he was only acting in discharge of his military duties.

'Mr. Watson, for the plaintiff, resumed his answer to the contention of Mr. Tindal Atkinson, K.C., that an action would not lie against the defendant in the Civil courts for something done in connection with military discipline. Mr. Watson held that the decided cases were not analogous to the present action. They only applied to questions affecting military discipline and military duty. It was no offense for the

plaintiff, though a private, to make a complaint to the defendant against another officer.

'Mr. Justice McCardie said that if an officer who proceeded against a man for breach of good order were subsequently proved to have been wrong, it could not surely be suggested that he would be liable for false imprisonment. If that were so, no officer would be safe, and he did not see how an officer could carry out his duties. It was obvious that in a case where a man might, for the purpose of embarrassing his superiors, make frivolous complaints, knowing them to be unfounded, an officer might have the right of proceeding against him. If he could not proceed against him for a breach of good order and discipline, what could he do?

'Mr. Watson replied that he might be dealt with under the head of mutiny. 'His Lordship remarked that there would be no question of mutiny.

'Counsel submitted that in this case the whole of the military proceedings were invalid through failure to carry out the regulations provided under the Army Act.

'His Lordship said he would consider his judgment. It was a case of great interest and one of great public importance. He thanked all the counsel engaged for the ability with which they had assisted him by their arguments.

To be quite abreast of the times Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son have prepared a booklet, Aerial Travel for Business or Pleasure, announcing their appointment as official passenger agents for the principal companies operating aerial lines. The letterpress and mary illustrations suggest the safety and comfort with which, it is contended, aerial journeys may be made in machines expressly adapted for passenger traffic.