£2,000 will pay to the State a Tax of £100 3,000 ” ” ” 400 4,000 ” ” ” 900 5,000 ” ” ” 1,600 6,000 ” ” ” 2,500 7,000 ” ” ” 3,600 8,000 ” ” ” 4,900 9,000 ” ” ” 6,400 10,000 ” ” ” 8,100 11,000 ” ” ” 10,000 12,000 ” ” ” 12,100 * * * * * The richest man in the community will thus be he who has an income of £6,000 a year; on this he will have to pay £2,500 income tax, leaving him with an available balance of £3,500 a year to spend! Now was not this anonymous Frenchman a man of real genius? And is he not a signal example of the truth that “The world knows nothing of its greatest men”? * * * * * The assumptions on which this lofty attempt to reconstruct the social fabric are based are obvious. They are these:-- I. That the earners of daily or weekly wages are not owners of property, nor can they be classed among the possessors of a secure annual income. _De minimis non curat lex._ II. That it is to the advantage of the community to _increase_ the number of small capitalists, and to assist them with State aid--though in a diminishing ratio as their property or incomes increase, and they need less and less encouragement. III. That it is equally for the advantage of the community to _decrease_ the number of large capitalists and to discourage the accumulation of wealth in few hands; and therefore it is necessary to fix a limit of wealth which men shall not be permitted to exceed. Oh! ye Astors and Vanderbilts! Ye Rothschilds and Barings! Ye kings of railroads and bacon and nitre! Aye! and such as thou citizen Labouchere--thou of the morbidly sensitive conscience. Tremble, for your day is coming! The age of hap-hazard and empirical finance is passing--the age of scientific and philosophic readjustment is about to dawn. There are those whose mission it will be to set all things straight, and to bring peace on earth and goodwill to men by the exquisitely simple machinery of Fiscal Reform. When that time comes Mammon’s Kingdom will sink to be a mere tributary to the great pantisocracy of the future. Hoarding and accumulating will pass away and die--brought to an end by the phlebotomy of the scientists. Money-grubbing will be an incident in the historic romances of that happy time, and the tutored youth, young men and maidens, will smile at the darkness and fumbling stupidity of those untaught generations who only chattered of a golden age, with never a dream that a better age than that would come with the revolving years--to wit, the age of-- ·0001 (x-m)². VII. _WHY I WISH TO VISIT AMERICA._