16 DECEMBER 1916, Page 10

POLITICS AND PRICES.

[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The writer of your article on the above subject has, I should think, forgotten that the direct War Tax he proposes would fall, not only on people whose income has been increased during the last two years, but also on those with small or moderate fixed incomes. Many of these latter—people of education and refinement—are seriously impoverished and harassed to an extent which decreases, I should suppose, their efficiency by the rise of prices and by the present Income Tax. To tax them further would be sheer cruelty. I would commend to the writer's attention the passage you quote on p. 736 from Mr. Baumann's article in the Nineteenth Century.—I am, Sir, &c., R. J. FLETCHER.