The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been a good deal
attacked this week, as well by deputation as in Parliament, on the score of his affection for the Income-tax. On Tuesday, a deputation waited upon him to persuade him that it is not a Conservative policy to cling to the Income-tax, and that he would serve the Conservative party much better by eschewing all indications of value for it, than by making it useful as an instrument of taxation. Sir Stafford Northcote's reply was manly, though in the latter part of his speech he showed himself a little too squeezable on the point of the unpopularity of the tax. He declined, he said, to look at finance in a party light at alL He had greatly re- gretted the necessity for raising the Income-tax, and it was not trim that the Conservative Government had come to any resolu- tion to keep it as a permanent tax. On the contrary, he agreed "that we should not further reduce the taxation on articles of consumption until we can deal with this question," which looked a little too like holding out hope that he would not take off any other tax till this could go too. However, he did also say that he could not see his way to getting rid of the tax "at an early period," and that there was a convenience in keeping the collecting machinery at work, if only for the great financial resource the tax provides in time of need. On the whole, Sir Stafford North- cote made a firm reply.
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