Profiteering in the pits

From ‘Coal and its problems’, The Spectator, 24 July 1915: Instead of attempting to regulate prices, the government ought to have contented themselves with taxing profits, and by that phrase we mean not only the extra profits of the coalowner, but also the extra wages of the coalminer. The assumption that the coalminer is morally justified in obtaining an extra wage for himself out of the nation’s needs, and that the coalowner is not justified in obtaining an extra profit, cannot possibly be defended.