Letters to the Editor
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week " paragraphs.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.]
TAXING ILLEGALITY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sia, Those who make an honest living within the law, may perhaps deem it right that others, amassing opulence by methods which are forbidden by it, should at least be taxed on their gains. To that extent the average citizen may approve Mr. Justice Finlay's decision that profits made in a ready- money betting business, admittedly illegal, should yield their due quota to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. There are, however, two matters connected with the case which provoke considerably greater perplexity. If the illegal busi- ness were that of a burglar, or a blackmailer, or a receiver of stolen property, there can be no conceivable doubt that, tax or no tax, it would at once be stopped and those carrying it out sent to prison, presumably for terms of penal servitude. To this end all Government departments would no doubt work in harmony.
In the present case, however, there is not the smallest suggestion that the business should be discontinued or its proprietors punished. That of course is not within the pro- vince of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, but they form part of the machinery of law and order, and the Government officially knows that a particular individual and a company formed by him are making most substantial profits by con- travening the law. Is there any suggestion, then, that the law should be properly enforced against them ? This question leads to the second matter, the extraordinary order by which the names of the man in question and his company were concealed from the public in the reports of the case. Mr. Justice Finlay disclaimed responsibility for this order. It does not even appear from the reports whether he himself knew the names or not. If he had done so and made them public, it is difficult to see what process could have been issued against him for disregarding the order of the unknown authority, for a judge can hardly be charged with contempt of his own court. Neither the name of the person responsible for this order nor the reason for it is published.
If it relieves the police from official knowledge of the law- breakers and their businesses, and allows the former to carry on the latter, it does not relieve the Government, who now know all about it. If these lawbreakers are so tenderly pro- tected from publicity, why are the unhappy people who come into the Divorce Court invariably denied privacy ? When a divorce petition is dismissed, the parties are told to go and live happily ever after, the Court having finally done its best or its worst to prevent them doing so by throwing the search- light of publicity on their domestic differences. The whole mutter appears worthy of the attention of members of Parlia- ment, who might profitably put a few questions about it to the appropriate ministers. Non olet pecunia, of course, but the highwayman and his lawyers who brought proceedings for an account of a trading partnership against a brother highway- man fared very differently when they appeared before an outraged Chancery judge in the eighteenth century.—I am,
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