carry it, and would roll over on its back when it met the slightest obstacle, which is very much what our trade does under our unequal system. It is sometimes said that the capitalists who lent the Government the money for the war deserve the hire of it because they made sacrifices. As I was one of them myself I can tell you without malice that this is sentimental nonsense. They were the only people who were not called on to make any sacrifice: on the contrary, they were offered a gilt-edged investment at five per cent when they would have taken four. The people who were blinded, maimed, or killed by the war were those really sacrificed; and those who worked and fought were the real saviors of the country; whilst the people who did nothing but seize the national loaf that others had made, and take a big bite out of it (they and their servants) before passing on what they left of it to the soldiers, did no personal service at all: they only made the food shortage still shorter. The reason for pampering them in this absurd fashion was not for any service or merit on their part: it was the special consideration we have to shew to spare money as such because we are afraid there would not be any available if we did not pamper a class by giving it more than it can spend. We shall have to go further into this when we examine the nature of capital later on. Meanwhile, if you had the misfortune to lose an eye during one of the air raids, or if you lost your husband or son, or if you “did your bit” strenuously throughout the war, and are now a taxpayer, it must seem to you, to say the least, funny to have money taken from you by the Government and handed over to some lady who did nothing but live as indulgently as she could all the time. You will not easily be convinced that it would have been a more dreadful thing for the Government to commandeer her money than your husband’s limbs, or your son’s life. The utmost that can be said is that it may have been more expedient.