War-time financial problems

AN UNPRINTABLE ANSWER 105

<a statutory rate to be taken over by the State for
the public good, this would be, in effect, the con-
tinuance on stricter lines of the Excess Profits Duty.
As a war measure the Excess Profits Duty has much
to be said for it at a time when the Government, by
its inflationary policy, is putting large windfalls of
profit into the hands of most people who have to hold
a stock of goods and have only to hold them to see
them rise in value. The argument that the State
should take back a large proportion of this artificially
produced profit is sound enough ; but, if it is really
to be the case that industry is to be asked for the
future to take all the risk of enterprise and hand
'over all the profit above a certain level to the
Government, the reply of industry to such a pro-
position would inevitably be short, emphatic, un-
printable, and by no means productive of revenue
to the State.