That is the “Ton Jo” letter. That is the document which, printed in big black type in the centre of the front page of the _Figaro_ on Friday, March 13, 1914, and re-printed in facsimile lower down on the same page, was followed on the 16th by the revolver shots which killed Monsieur Gaston Calmette. The letter was written by Monsieur Caillaux on July 5, 1901—thirteen years before it was published in the _Figaro_. When he wrote it Monsieur Caillaux was Minister of Finance in the Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet, and apart from the tragic event which followed close on its publication, the letter is a curious and upsetting confession of political duplicity. The income-tax has been Monsieur Joseph Caillaux’s hobby horse for many years. It is an uncomfortable sensation to read, over his own signature, this confession, in his own handwriting, that while appearing to fight for the tax he was really doing his best to crush it out of sight. The natural deduction was of course that Monsieur Caillaux was now, in 1914, pursuing the same tactics which he pursued thirteen years ago. [Illustration: La véritable déclaration de M. Caillaux relative à l’impôt sur le revenu THE “TON JO” LETTER FROM THE _FIGARO_ Friday, March 13, 1914] Once again his speeches have shown him as a partisan of the income-tax, and a partisan of the taxation of French Rentes. The “Ton Jo” letter leaves us uncertain whether this partisanship is not merely a political move, and whether Monsieur Caillaux may not again be “crushing the income-tax while appearing to defend it.” His own letter is a terrible comment on his policy, and it is difficult to exaggerate the shock which the publication of this letter caused in Parliament and among the supporters of the Minister of Finance and of the present Government. Needless to say, Monsieur Gaston Calmette made the most of it. He embodied the letter in a long article in which he repeated his former accusations against Monsieur Caillaux, accused him of conniving at the escape of Rochette from justice because Rochette’s money was useful to his personal policy, accused him of deliberate lying in the announcement he made of his resignation from the board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien, accused him openly of felony in connexion with the Bourse _coup_ and the tax.