6 DECEMBER 1919, Page 3

It is a sad sign of the times, however, that

any considerable aumber of men should be found to vote for freeing their par. tioular trade from a tax which is levied upon everybody whose income exceeds a stated figure. In the lower grades of income the tax is modified by so many abatements, particularly in the case of married men with families, that it cannot be pre- tended that it falls heavily. In any case those miners who have voted for a strike are guilty of a gross assertion of particularism, of class privilege, of aristocratic exclusiveness. The miners are first and foremost British citizens. It is a mere accident of their life that they happen to be miners.