In commenting on this scheme the Economist of September 15th took the case of a man with a fortune of L100,000 invested before the war in a well-assorted list of securities, the whole of which he had, for patriotic reasons, converted during the war into War Loans.  He would have no difficulty about paying his capital levy, for he would obviously surrender something between 10 and 20 per cent. of his holding.  But, “in exchange for nearly two-thirds of the rest, he might find himself landed with houses and bits of land all over the country, a batch of unsaleable mining shares, a collection of blue china, a pearl necklace, a Chippendale sideboard, and a doubtful Titian,” The Round Table’s suggestion seems to be even more impracticable.  According to it, holders of all other forms of property besides War Loans would be assessed for one-eighth of its value—­it does not explain how the value is to be arrived at, nor how long it would take to do it—­and would then be called on to acquire and to surrender to the State the same amount of War Loan scrip.  To do this they would be obliged to realise a part of their property or to mortgage it, a process which would seem likely to produce a pretty state of affairs in the property market; and a very pleasant state of affairs indeed would arise for the holders of War Loan scrip, since there would be a large crowd of compulsory buyers in the market from whom the holders would apparently be able to extort any price that they liked for their stock.

The next stage in the proceedings was a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, concerning which more anon, of leaders of various groups of the Labour Party, to press upon Mr Bonar Law the principle of what is called “the Conscription of Wealth,” and the publication at or soon after that time, which was about the middle of November, of a pamphlet on the subject of the “Conscription of Riches,” by the War Emergency Workers’ National Committee, 1, Victoria Street, S.W.  Among what this pamphlet describes as “the three practicable methods of conscripting wealth” No. 1 is as follows:—­

A Capital Tax, on the lines of the present Death Duties, which are graduated from nothing (on estates under L300, and legacies under L20) up to about 20 per cent. (on very large estates left as legacies to strangers).

If a “Death Duty” at the existing rates were now levied simultaneously on every person in the kingdom possessing over L300 wealth (every person might be legally deemed to have died, and to be his own heir), it might yield to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about L900,000,000.  It would be necessary to offer a discount for payment in cash; and in order to avoid simultaneous forced sales, to accept, in lieu of cash, securities at a valuation; and to take mortgages on land.