Excerpted from Rulers of Russia (1940), pgs. 90-92
There is, moreover, another aspect of the question. The crushing burden of taxation due to the payment of interest on debt is utilised as means for the preparation of Communism or of the Semi-Communist State advocated by P.E.P. Let us first hear Arthur Kitson on the burden of debt and then, some Socialist authorities on the end to which taxation is being directed.
The Builders’ Journal (April, 1939) quotes the following pas sage from Arthur Kitson’s writings: “Our National Debt on March 31st, 1919, was £7,434,949,429. From 1920 to 1933 inclu sive there has been paid towards the redemption of the National Debt £4,104,843,063. During the same period there has been paid in interest charges on the debt £4,288,925,186. . . . In spite of this, our National Debt on December 31st, 1933 (including our debt to the U.S.A.), was £7,947,000,000, being £512,000,000 morethan the original debt of March 31st, 1919! In other words, the nation has paid on account of the debt and itnerest charges the sum of £868,000,000 more than the original debt of March 31st, 1919, without reducing the original debt by one shilling!” Money- lending to nations seems to be even more lucrative than lending to individuals! Mr. Kitson, however, in The Bankers’ Conspir acy, shows that matters were still worse than these figures indi cate. The Cunliffe Currency Committee’s Report, issued in August, 1918, recommended the restoration of the gold-standard at the pre-War parity “without delay.” In The Bankers’ Con spiracy, p. 92, we read: “In advising the restoration of the gold- standard they are advising the Government to increase the Na tional Debt and so add to the burden of taxation which the British public will have to bear. At present our National Debt approxi mates to £8,000,000,000! But what are these pounds and with what were they subscribed? The Committee must know that the War Loans were subscribed in ‘cheap’ pounds, approximating in value to only one-half of the pre-War pounds. Hence our War debt, expressed in pre-War pounds, would be less than £4,000,000,000! By restoring the gold-standard, the public debt would therefore be doubled and become £8,000,000,000 at pre-war value!Hence every taxpayer would be compelled to pay twice the amount of taxes in his products and services by reason of the Commit tee’s recommendations. Very nice for the money-lenders and war- loan subscribers, but rather hard on the wealth producers and taxpayers! . . . The money-lenders’ code of morals—which the Committee apparently endorses—is that, whilst it is very wicked for debtors to defraud their creditors, creditors are quite justified in robbing their debtors. This seems to be the moral basis of the gold-standard.” It may be well to add that Mr. Winston Churchill restored the gold-standard in 1925.
On the other hand, “this high-taxing, high-spending policy is laid down in innumerable Socialist handbooks as an essential pre liminary to the imposition of full Socialism. Private enterprise is to be so crushed with burdens of every sort that it is glad to throw in the sponge and quit. . . . Taxation is the chief means/ says Britain’s Socialist Fabian Society in its Tract No. 127, add ing that ‘to the Socialist, the best of governments is that which spends the most.’ Similarly emphatic was a leading American exponent of Socialism, the late Morris Hillquit (a Jew whose real name was Misca Hilkowicz), who pointed out in his Socialism Summed Up (1913) that high taxes, shorter hours, and shorter week, freedom to strike, etc., the owners of businesses could be reduced to the point of being glad to be taken over by the State. Another eminent Jewish Socialist, Professor Laski, of the Lon don School of Economics, is equally strong on ‘the weapon of taxation’ . . . Mr. George Bernard Shaw, eminent British Social ist, puts the bedrock idea of the whole business very bluntly in the British Labour Monthly of October, 1921. He said: ‘Com pulsory labour, with death as the final penalty, is the keystone of Socialism.’ . . . In a fully Socialised state, opposition to the ruling clique must from the force of circumstances take the form of underground conspiracy, working secretly until it is strong enough for an open test of strength. Against this danger the ruling clique in turn must protect itself with a gigantic spy serv ice. . . . Russia’s gigantic spy service and perpetual ‘liquidations’ of suspected oppositionists are no accidental features. They are inherent in full Socialism. As to how they work out in practice a former Bolshevik Commissar of Justice named Steinberg gave the following description in the New York Times of February 23rd, 1930: ‘On the one side, we have intoxication with power and a realisation that anything done by him who wields power will go unpunished; and, on the other, fear, depression, silent hatred and sycophancy; the rise of two classes, masters and slaves. In
Notes:
- A. N. Field in Examiner, May. 1939.