25 JUNE 1937, Page 3

The new profits tax occasioned a sober and somewhat lifeless

debate. Both Mr. Pethick Lawrence and Colonel Nathan greatly preferred the income-tax method, and the former criticised the exclusion from the tax of " professional persons." Sir Francis Acland, whose value to his small party is immense, reiterated the Liberal view that a levy upon profits is a wholly inadequate way of preventing profiteering in armaments. Mr. Brendan Bracken thought that the Socialist refugees, left behind by their party in 1931, had apparently converted the Government. (Query— Can a person who is left behind be a refugee ?) But on the whole the tax had a surprisingly easy passage. Every speaker was judging it, not on its merits, but by comparison with its predecessor.