happening will probably be the first unmistakable sign, to be recognized even by a Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the ruin of England is getting near. The mainstay of the revenue is the revenue from taxation. The bulk of the revenue from taxation comes from the business and professional class, perhaps the most valuable section of the population. But this class is being exhausted by taxation. It is now considerably paying taxation out of capital or savings. In this connection it is necessary to refer to a serious mistake made by Commander Hilton Young, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on April 26th, when speaking in the House in reply to Mr. Pretyman. Mr. Pretyman said "this year again people would be paying income tax out of capital." Thereupon Commander Hilton Young said it was absurd to state that income tax could not be paid out of income, because "it was proposed to raise 410 millions by income tax, but the actual income in assessment was 2,350 millions." This reply seemed to satisfy the House, and no one pointed out the mistake made by the Commander. Let me try to explain this mistake. The bulk of the income tax comes from the business and professional class, who are assessed as regards earned income upon the three years' average plan. This means that income tax being paid in the year 1921 relates to the average earned income during the years 1917, 1918, 1919. The Financial Secretary's assessment figure of 2,350 millions of income relates mainly to the three years just named. His mistake was to assume that the income being earned during 1917-19 is still being earned in the year 1921, when the tax has to be paid. In a large proportion of cases the income in 1921 is much less than the income of 1917-19. In many cases, owing to the fall in income or to the ceasing of earned income, the tax in 1921 actually has to be paid out of capital, as Mr. Pretyman stated. Let me mention an actual instance known to me. A taxpayer has to pay £300 of income tax in 1921. This relates mainly to earned income during 1917-19. In 1921, owing to various causes, the total income of this man will not exceed £300, as his earned income is almost nil. He has to draw on savings to pay his way in 1921, and in addition he has to take £300 from saved earnings in order to pay income tax in 1921. There are many instances similar to the one now quoted. Some months ago Mr. Chamberlain informed us that the highest rate of income tax was for very rich men, who had to pay 16s. in the pound. Mr. Chamberlain was mistaken. Many

people with small incomes, whose earned income has slumped or vanished, are now paying 20s. in the pound or more as income tax. The case above quoted is only one instance of a poor man having to pay away the whole of his income in 1921 as income tax.

I have dealt with the above mistakes made by leading politicians, not because I want to dwell upon the cruelty or the injustice of a poor man having to pay 20s. or more in the pound of income as income tax, but because facts of this sort all go to support the opinion, and to enforce the warning, that these enormous war-revenue budgets in peace years will not continue to be collected. They may continue to be arranged for in a Chancellor's Budget, but the money cannot be forthcoming for much longer.

When the war with Germany ended, there were two things that might have saved England. One thing is Production, Production, Production, so as to make good the awful waste of national wealth during the war. The other thing is Economy in all directions, beginning with the Government. But in place of Production and Economy we have had the so-called working classes constantly on strike and slacking when they do work. They have been encouraged by the Government policy of doles to be wastrels, and now many of them prefer to scrape along on the Government dole rather than to work. In place of Economy we have had wholly reckless expenditure by the Government, naturally enough copied by the local spending authorities. The business and professional class has had to "economize," a euphemistic word for near penury, and to work hard to keep things going. They see their tax money used to give huge bonuses to highly paid Civil Servants, and they read that 75 per cent. of these bonuses is to count as pension for the Civil Servant.

The most valuable section of citizens is being wiped out. When they are done for, away goes the "Revenue from Taxation" shown in Table No. 3. What will then happen? Will the Will the politicians eat up the bureaucrats, or will the bureaucrats swallow the politicians? Or will the dole-takers come along and demolish both the politicians and the bureaucrats? The relatively Good-for-Something Class will be non-existent, having been eaten up by the various groups of the relatively Good-for-Nothing Classes, namely, the Politicians, the Bureaucrats, the Dole-takers.

JOHN HOLT SCHOOLING

SELF-DETERMINATION: IN THREE

EPISODES

I: 1915

IT was the night of full moon, the soft warm whispering night of tropical Africa. Through the rustling fronds of the palm-trees the moonlight flickered in shimmering bars of grey and white, with here and there deep patches of shade as palm gave way to plantain grove, and the latter finally ended in the darkness of the primeval forest. Among the palm groves lay the scattered clusters of huts which formed the village of Sanchu. It was a typical African hamlet, each compound separate from its neighbour, with grain bins, wood store, women's huts and head-man's dwelling, forming complete individual entities, enclosed in most cases by hedges of flowering shrubs and shaded by trees of plantain and banana. The village lay 'twixt forest and mountain. Behind rose a mighty range of hills, a natural barrier between the people of the plains and the pagan tribes inhabiting the plateau in which the mountains culminated. Below stretched the village farms, carved from the forest which enclosed them, and which now towered dark and gloomy in the moonlight. For generations the people of Sanchu had lived, so to speak, with a foot in both camps, for they farmed and lived in the rich plainlands and prospered exceedingly in consequence, while at any hint of danger from envious or more powerful neighbours they took to the hills, where they found security and a hearty welcome from the various subsidiary villages which dotted the mountain sides. For years they had lived in comparative peace, for the exactions of the German District Commissioner and the occasional visits of his soldiery, who usually left rapine and murder in their train, though unpleasant incidents in themselves, were insignificant events compared with the intensive struggle for existence before the white man came into the country. Now, however, a new factor had arisen. White man was fighting white man, and black was doomed to suffer in the process.

The wide open space in the centre of the village lay bathed in the bright moonlight, save where a gigantic rubber-tree threw its shadows on the grass beneath. This was the meeting-place of the tribe, and on this night a

council of importance was to be held, for the space was alive with dusky figures, some squatting silently in little groups, others moving from place to place and converging gradually on the spot where, on his stool beneath the tree, sat the chief of Sanchu himself, preparing to preside over the deliberations of his tribe. From far away on the hills came the faint tap-tap of the signal drums. From the forest below came others, nearer yet indistinct; on the hills above, a single muffled boom. Then silence, followed by a deep reverberating crash as the council drum within the village sent forth its word that all were present and the council of the tribe assembled in full session.

First came the ceremony of propitiation, with the slaying of a black and a white cock, from which the blood was allowed to drip slowly into a wooden bowl held by the village priest and juju man. Into this bowl Sanchu himself, then each of his head councillors and sub-chiefs grouped in semicircle round the stool, first dipped a forefinger, then lightly smeared the forehead with the blood. This ceremony finished, the bowl was handed back to Ayok, the juju man, who swallowed the remnant of the mixture in one gulp, then hurled the bowl far over the heads of the assembled councillors. Followed a brief silence, till the village drums once more crashed forth in unison and the council was thus formally opened.

Sanchu himself was the first to speak. He had assembled the tribe, he said, to discuss a weighty matter. The German District Commissioner had sent a messenger to say that German and English white men were at war'; that the Germans would soon eat" the English and drive them into the sea; that all the men of the village and of those villages which followed Sanchu were required to report themselves at once for work as carriers or soldiers; that Sanchu himself was to bring them in to headquarters, while failure to do so would result in the destruction of the village and the shooting of Sanchu and his head-men. The messenger had further announced that if any assistance, individual or collective, was given to the English, who would shortly be approaching this part of the country, no distinction would be made between innocent and guilty, and the whole tribe would suffer the utmost penalties. To resist the order seemed suicidal. And only by a strategic retirement to the bush when the news arrived that a Government messenger was approaching had he, Sanchu, managed to evade a direct reply and

gain time in which to consult the members of the tribe. What had they to say, he now inquired, and what answer should be sent upon the morrow?

Silence fell upon the assembled meeting when he had finished speaking. Presently, up rose an old and wizened patriarch, bent, apelike, and almost inhuman in his skinny nakedness. It was Ayok, the juju man-a relic of the past, but a source of lively terror to the present, for even the young men feared his spells and had perforce to listen to his words. This was his hour, and the quietness of the night was broken by a shrieking flood of speech. All white men are bad. Their ways are evil and their presence an offence" (here he spat viciously upon the ground). "Let them fight among themselves. The more that are killed the better chance for a return of the good old days when the young men of the tribe went forth to war and returned with the heads of slaughtered enemies and with women and children as their slaves. No call in those good days for tax or carriers; the white man when he came brought many troubles, and now that they fought among themselves the black man's chance had come. Why side with German or with Englishman? Let the sacrificial customs be restored, and let the altars once more run with blood, that the neglected gods might once again look favourably upon the tribe of Sanchu." Such was the tenor of his speech, and the very thought of those halcyon times sufficed to work the old man up into a frenzy which none dared interrupt, till nature finally cut short his peroration and he fell foaming and spluttering upon the ground.

His place was taken by a tall and well-built pagan, a younger son of the chief, and one whose words evidently carried weight with the tribe. He, it appeared, knew the English and had worked in their country. He had even witnessed their landing in German territory some few weeks before, and had noted that none of the inhabitants had been molested, but that, on the contrary, the English had paid for all that they received and pressed no man as carrier against his will. In English country, he affirmed, a black man could get justice in a black man's court, or, failing that, could appeal to a European judge, while the soldier was punished equally with the peasant, and not allowed to rape and murder in the villages as was the German custom. Moreover, he had spoken to the English Political Officer who had landed with the English soldiers, and the latter had told him that the Germans would