SUGGESTED FANCY STROKES 259

additions to the "Black List" even after the
armistice!), and if our ruling wiseacres will refrain
from trying to stimulate industry by taxing raw
and half-raw materials. For the debt charge many
pleasant and simple fancy strokes are suggested.
The Levy on Capital is popular, especially with those
who do not own any, but its advocacy is by no means
confined to them. Mr Pethick Lawrence has
published a persuasive little book about it, but I
cannot see that he meets the objections to it. These
are, the difficulty of valuation, the fact that in many
cases it would have to be paid by instalments, and so
would be merely another form of income tax, its
sparing of the waster and penalising of the saver,
and, consequently, the grave danger that it would
check accumulation and so dry up the springs of
capital. Mr Stilwell has produced a " Great Plan to
Pay for the War/' by which all the belligerents and
neutrals who have been involved in^expense by the
war would receive World Bonds from an Inter-
national Congress for what they have spent owing to
the war, and would then pay one another any inter-
national debts by exchanging these World Bonds,
and deal with the home debt by paying it off in new
currency raised on the World Bonds. But, surely,
to pay off war debt with a huge addition to currency,
making war's inflation many times worse, would be
a disastrous beginning to that new era which is
alleged to be dawning.

By hard work, sparing consumption of luxuries,
and a big industrial output, we can soon make the
debt charge look smaller and smaller as compared