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 t