17 JULY 1909, Page 11

• WINDFALLS. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sift,—The leading

columns of your last issue contain a criticism of some letters recently written by me to the Times on the subject of windfalls. In the course of this criticism considerable energy is expended upon the demolition of my supposed view that anticipated increments of land value are windfalls, and ought for that reason to be taxed. If you will refer again to the letters which you are criticising, you will notice that the greater part of the longest of them is devoted to an express repudiation of that view ! In the genial banter at the close of your article you suggest that I should "issue a new professorial edict." If that were possible, I should have no difficulty in selecting a topic with which the edict might deal. It would summon from their lair all anonymous writers in newspapers, and prohibit them, on pain of deportation, from attributing, even to professors, the precise opposite of

what they have said.—I am, Sir, &c., A. C. Pio= King's College, Cambridge.

[We greatly regret that we misunderstood Professor Pigou's meaning, for no one will, of course, wish to challenge his interpretation of his own letter. Unless we are greatly mistaken, however, his letter was interpreted as we interpreted it by the Prime Minister, the Westminster Gazette, and the bulk of the Liberal Press.—En. Spectator.]