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tice?” The direct reply is an emphatic “ No.” In all taxa 
tion there must be injustice, under every system hard cases. 
The necessity of mentioning this point is irritating, but there 
is so much unthinking clamour when taxation is debated, and 
exceptional cases are so continually adduced as evidence of 
general injustice, that it is essential to lay down clearly that 
Justice in taxation is never attainable, and that our object 
must frankly be approximation to Justice, and our plans be 
dictated by that consideration. Our problem, then, is how 
far a Capital Levy can be made in a way to fulfil the require 
ments of Adam Smith’s first canon of taxation :— 
“ The subjects of every State ought to contribute towards 
the support of the Government as nearly as possible in pro 
portion to their respective abilities—that is, in proportion 
to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the pro 
tection of the State.” 
Treatment of Large Incomes. 
As between capitalist and capitalist, graduation of tax 
according to capital possessed will meet the difficulty of in 
justice, leaving to be considered the question of an equitable 
adjustment of the burden of taxation for debt redemption, as 
between the capitalist and the non-capitalist. In this con 
nection the typical case that must occur to most minds is that 
of the citizen possessed of personal gifts which enable him to 
earn a large income, gifts frequently accompanied by a tem 
perament which leads him to spend his money as fast or faster 
than he makes it. Let us once more fall back on our old 
friends Brown and Jones. The former has a capital of fifty * 
thousand pounds bringing him in an income of £2,500 a year, 
the latter is a professional man earning four times that income.