Tax demand

From ‘Lenders and taxpayers’, The Spectator, 3 February 1917: As to the general financial soundness of the country there can be no question… Indeed, one of our worst economic troubles at the present moment is that many classes of people are in possession of more money than they have ever handled before, and cannot resist the temptation of spending it lavishly. Somehow or other their expenditure on their personal gratification has to be controlled in the interests of the state. A considerable amount of control is being exercised through the power which the government possess of regulating our imports. That power, as we shall presently urge, must be more extensively used as regards certain commodities. But apart altogether from this direct control over the importation of specified commodities, it is of the utmost importance to secure a general limitation of consumption, and that end can best be attained by the old-fashioned, but always efficient, device of taxation.