If in fifteen to twenty years reparation payments
have wiped out 1000 millions, debt repayments another 1000, and ordinary
reductions by sinking funds another 1000 millions, you will have the
debt down to 5000 millions, and possibly the lower interest then
effective may bring the annual charge down to some 200 or 225 million
pounds. If the population has reached sixty millions the nominal annual
charge will be reduced from L7 16s. by one-half, but if prices have
dropped further, say half-way, to the pre-war level, the comparable
burden will still be L4 10s. per head.
It is no good talking about "holidays from taxation" and imagining you
can get rid of this thing easily; you won't. We are still in the war
financially. There is the same need of the true national spirit and
heroism as there was then. Thus hard facts may ultimately force us to
some such expedient as the levy, but we should not accept it
light-heartedly, or regard it as an obvious panacea. Perhaps in two or
three years we may tell whether economic conditions are stable enough to
rob it of its worst evils.
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