21 AUGUST 1909, Page 15

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE " SPECTATOR " AND THE LAND CLAUSES.

[TO The EDITOR Or THE "SpHarsToH.-]

SIR,-I am a thoroughgoing Liberal and Progressive who firmly believes that only by what is called "Socialistic legisla- tion" can we remedy the unemployment, want, and destitu- tion resulting (as it seems to me) partly from " labour- saving " science, and partly from the spread of luxury and its attendant appalling "waste" of various kinds. Nevertheless, I do most heartily thank you for your replies to Mr. Harold Spender and Mr. Mallet, and for your clear and straight- forward pronouncement on the subject of the proposed Land- taxes and Mr. Lloyd George's thoroughly characteristic speech at Limehouse.

I am quite sure that there are a very large number of advanced Liberals who, like myself, can see no possible connexion between the ethics and principles of the "Liberal cause" and the gross injustices and inequalities of the present Budget. But for the moment we are borne down in the councils of the "Liberal Party" by the combined forces of rancorous fanaticism, cynical opportunism, and hopelessly obstinate, if honest, muddle-headedness, which seem all-powerful with the Cabinet.

The "Liberal cause" appears to me to be well summed up in the phrase "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." It is the same " cause " as that which the first earnest and thoughtful leaders of the French Revolution set themselves to promote. We all know what became of that cause when power passed away from those first leaders to the Dantons and Desmoulins and Robespierres, and other "Men of the Mountain," who made their appeals to the envy and malice and ferocity of all the baser and more violent elements of society, and added "or death" to the formula. It perished in a tornado of cruelty and wickedness, and that in turn gave place to a regime of "blood and iron" which crushed out nearly all useful social reform and regeneration for nearly half-a-century.

Have we any reason to think that the success of Mr. Lloyd George's and Mr. Churchill's appeals to the same evil qualities of the human heart will produce anything essentially different nowadays ? I think not. They can only more and more divide "the good fellows" of the country into hostile camps, and prevent them from ever comprehending how much more they hold in common than they imagine, and that the great national problems that now face us cannot be rightly solved except by a practical consensus of the best men of all parties.

Mr. Spender, like all the other supporters of the Land- taxes, entirely blinks the question of injustice to the owners of a species of property which (and the innumerable interests in which that have grown up and been created by law) have been hought and sold in the open market to the extent of very many millions during the last two hundred years and more, and are held in the main, not by Dukes, but by all sorts and conditions of the general public. He gives no ethical reason whatever why this particular class of citizens should pay taxes from which their fellow-subjects, however wealthy, are exempt. Very likely he may argue, as regards the Increment and Reversion Taxes, that they only relate to future transactions, and so will not affect present values. But this is altogether illusory, for the selling-price is sure to become at once less by an estimate of the future impost. A well-thought-out scheme of graduated taxation by which each man pays out of his surplus income according to its amount would be fair all round, would bring in far more revenue, and would, I am sure, be generally accepted if recommended to all classes by appeals to their best feelings and impulses on a basis of national brotherhood. To make such a scheme practicable and most prolific I am certain is not beyond the powers of our best politicians, and Mr. Spender, whose great abilities we all admire, would be better employed in evolving a practical measure of that kind than in trying to make the wrong appear the right.—I am, PS.—You do well to call attention to Mr. Philip Snowden's disapproval of Mr. Lloyd George's extraordinary speech, but one remark in the former's article from which you quote is very striking. It is that Mr. Lloyd George's "vehement attack on the landowners" would be "appropriate to an ordinary propa- gandist," but that "from a Minister in charge of a Bill serious argument and dignified controversy is expected." This is a remarkable illustration of the degraded view of political ethics held by even the most high-minded of the present Labour leaders. Clearly Mr. Snowden considers that the speech did not contain "serious argument," and that as "controversy" it was undignified as well as misleading. But he regards it as " appropriate " that "the ordinary propa- gandist" (i.e., the regular public speakers of his party) should seek to obtain the votes of the ignorant by similar speeches and appeals to envy, hatred, and covetousness.