CONSCRIPTION OF WEALTH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 65, 21 June 1916, Page 6

CONSCRIPTION OF WEALTH.

A'LONDON EXPERTS PLANCOMPREHENSIVE PROPERTY TAX. The London "Daily Chronicle" gives prominent place to an article urging "the conscription of wealth," The writer, who is said to be a well-known economist, suggests that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should make a levy on all the wealth iu.the kingdom, and thinks a vast sum could he raised in this way. He presents a calculation to show how, on a gi;:Juated percentage scale, £460,000,000 could be produced by an initial levy of 1 per cent on all property valued up to £SOOO, the percentage ..gradually increasing to 10 on property , valued over £IOO,OOO. He says:— "Wealth can be taken in any form —cash, stocks or real estate—and ean be sold, if there it. a market, or held ti there is no market. Unless something like this is done. Our peace Budgets will become crushing in thenweight. With a debt of £10.000,000,000 • interest and sinking fund payments will be over £120,000,000; pensions and oilier war charges £40,000,000, making the probable annual total of the Budgets as high a5"£400,000,000.

"Such Budgets ear. be met, but only with certain hampering of national development and danger to the nation's position in the world."