The Contemporary.
Sir Alfred Mond contributes an able and lucid article on "The Financial Situation and Capital Levy," explaining clearly why a levy, such as the Labour Party places in the forefront of its programme, would cause a grave financial panic—the fall in securities might even exceed the proposed amount of the levy—and lead to widespread loss of trade and employment. Sir Alfred Mond points out that the cost of war pensions might be lessened if the charge was funded and thus spread evenly over a given period of years. The so-called capital levy in Czecho-Slovakia is, in fact, an excess profits duty or new income-tax, and after three years barely a quarter of it has been collected. Mr. Pringle denounces the Food Marking Bill roundly as a Protectionist measure, which is a misuse of words. Mr. William Hill discusses the question whether divorce court reports should be published at length : an old journalist, he will not admit that everything should be sacrificed to the freedom of the Press," and he urges that the conductors of clean newspapers should be protected against their less scrupulous competitors. Mr. P. C. Standing celebrates the bicentenary of Sir Joshua Reynolds's birth in an agreeable essay, and Mr. Malcolm Letts recalls the past glories of Bruges.
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