Strenuous efforts are being made to avert the | imposition of a war-profits tax. The forces that | are busily employed exploiting the war are not | ready to give to the nation any of the advantages | now accruing to them because of the abnormal | economic situation.
|The daily newspapers do not tell us what the | influences are that seek to induce Hughes to add | another broken promise to his already | discreditable record. They preserve a complete | silence respecting the character of the interests | that seek to abandon forever any interference with | the blood-money of battle.
|All the subterfuges indulged in cannot hide the | fact that the war has proved a source of infinite | gain to certain powerful financial and commercial | groups.
|Immediately the tocsin of conflict sounded they | proceeded to plan a gigantic steal. And the truth | is they have succeeded upon a scale that staggers | the imagination. How enormous the war-profits are | can be judged from the amount collected last year | by the British Government in income super-tax and | war profits. Although the Chancellor of the | Exchequer admits the tax still enables dividends | of over 40 per cent to be paid, Britain last year | collected nearly 350,000,000 pounds thus:~~
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Australia has not yet collected a single | sixpence. All the talk about equality of | sacrifice, of compelling men to do their bit and | sacking from public and private employment men who | are not holders of rejection papers, becomes a | positive scandal, while the orgy of profiteering | goes on unrestrained and encouraged.
|If Labor had not been shattered some 2,000,000 | pounds would be now in the national Treasury. But | the renegades in co-operation with the Liberals put | an end to it.
|Now that the public clamor has become too | insistent to be longer neglected, the press | supporters of Hughes, assert that powerful | influences are at work urging him to abandon the | proposals absolutely. It is assuredly the dead | limit in audacity.
|If Hughes was in deadly earnest in making | voluntary enlistment equal to the things he | demands of it, he would jail the profiteers for | prejudicing recruiting. But they are not seized | on for punishment. They are to be lauded to the | skies as notable examples of patriotism.
|But they will not allow a penny of their | illicit money to go towards assisting returned | soldiers or any other good cause. When they | called the departing troops "heroes", they took it | for granted that no one would presume on that | affability to the extent of asking for assistance | for the self-same "heroes" and their wives and | children on the return from Europe.
|There is only one sane and just method of | dealing with war profits; to confiscate the entire | excess over normal balances.
|This means that robbery of the people and the | nation in the hours of storm and stress is | discouraged and, if not entirely eradicated, at | least reduced to a minimum.
|To do other than tax the full excess is to | encourage profiteering and place a premium on | price manipulation.
|So long as any tax involves a division of the | war-loot between the national Treasury and the | Vampires, exploitation of the public will be | organised to pay for all of it. Allowing the | profiteers any percentage means that prices will | be forced so high that the percentage will result | in enormous increases to present gains.
|By that means the already harassed public will | foot the war-bill as well as fatten the | profit-thugs.
|England furnishes a notable example of what a | partial tax results in. |
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Expenses (a microscopical proportion of which
| went to the workers) increased less than 50 per
| cent, but gross receipts expanded by 223 per cent.
| Again, capitalism gained
Profits, it will be seen, equalled 50,000,000 | pounds more than the total capitalisation.
|Under the English tax the companies were not | allowed keep all the loot. The Imperial | Government stepped in and demanded a share of the | proceeds.
|Deducting the pre-war profit of 20,000,000 | pounds the division resulted in 115,000,000 pounds to | the English Treasury and a paltry 135,000,000 pounds | to the shipping interests. The horrors of war!
| Confiscation of only a portion of the war
| profits undoubtedly places a premium on ruthless
| exploitation. In effect, it is an official
| invitation to Private Enterprise to
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The 50 per cent represents the limit to which | the Cabinet was allowed to go. Anyone who cares | to analyse the composition of the House of | Commons, and particularly the late Cabinets, will | find that the members were, most of them, | shareholders in concerns and institutions coming | into the consideration of the national life every | day. Particularly was this so in regard to | shipping, and some of the Ministers were directly | interested in steamship lines. Bonar Law, | Minister of State, is reported in last week's | press to have confessed to the Parliament that he | was personally interested in the profits won by | the shipping monopoly.
|And we want to know who the men are in | Australia whose position enables them to influence | the policy of the Hughes-Cook Government. That | they stand for economic graft is obvious. Yet the | volume of denunciation against Labor for | disloyalty still echoes in the land. Posturing | politicians like Scaddan still go on belching | forth the tremendous sacrifices they will ask | others to make to win the war, but they will say | nothing about the conspiracy of wealth seeking and | accomplishing fraud on the nation.
|Unless the tax on excess war-gains appropriates | the whole of it the cost of living problem cannot | be met.
|The two evils are derived from the one | source-production for profit and not for use.
|It is not expected that Hughes will abolish the | capitalist system. But it is demanded that the | outrageous gains now being made by a few | privileged plutocrats at the expense of the | suffering many shall cease.
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