POINTS OF COMMON GROUND.
Now in so far as the apprehensions of the investor, the wage earner or the dole recipient are merely based upon motives of self-interest, I am not concerned with upholding anticipatory protests or with administering anticipatory comfort. What, however, I am concerned with is the vital importance of the right remedies being applied. Let me refer to one or two main features of the situation concerning which I think there is fairly general agreement. One of them is the fact that the national expenditure is too high ; another is that the burden of taxation imposed to meet this expenditure has had, and is having, an injurious effect upon industry ; another is that this growth in expenditure has been largely due to politicians of all parties seeking to bribe , the proletariat out of the public purse, and yet another is that the heaping of direct taxation upon the few has prevented the automatic check which might have been expressed through the polling booths if the fact of the high expenditure had been brought home to the mass of the voters by some form of direct taxation ; while yet another is the condemnation and the abuse of the dole. Concerning one of these points, namely, the effect of high taxation upon industry, we have had statements more than once from the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself suggesting that the very limit of taxation had been reached.
Previous page