Sir Robert Giffen calculates in the Times that the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer will have to meet a deficit of £10,000,000, and argues that the time has arrived for a redistribution of taxation. He thinks that the Treasury now requires a permanent addition of £20,000,000 a year to revenue, add would obtain it by reverting to the system which prevailed before 1874, since when most remissions have been, he thinks, somewhat futile. He is of opinion, therefore, that the Income-tax should be reduced to 10d., and that the additional 220,000,000 should be raised " by 3d. additional per pound on tea, an additional Id. per pound on sugar, ls. per quarter on grain, ls. per load on timber, ld. per gallon on petroleum, and an additional 3s. per barrel on beer." We have little hone of seeing the Income-tax reduced below Is., or the duties on alcohol raised, as reasonable moralists would have them, until they operate as a positive check or restraint on excessive drinking. Indeed, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in a speech at Bristol has already rejected the proposal about beer. We note with some surprise that Sir R. Giffen thinks equality' between direct and indirect taxation is of little importance. Perhaps it is economically, but imagination plays a large part among taxpayers, and equality, at all events, looks fair.
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