[44] From this it follows incidentally that a high tariff is of no advantage to the community as a whole, but only to a particular section of the community. For the idea that it will benefit the whole community is based on the assumption that it is possible to divert a particular sort of foreign import; actually the tariff will not exclude the import if there is a natural demand for it, but it will provide an excuse for every dealer wholesale or retail to increase his profit on the article taxed by about double the amount of the tax; i.e. if an imported article pays a duty of sixpence, the price to the consumer of all such articles whether imported or home-made will be raised a shilling.
[45] In the July, 1914, issue of the Asiatic Review, to which I have already referred.
[46] I need hardly say that in speaking of the commercial class I do not include its instrument the workers. The international Socialist movement has not yet succeeded in uniting them; but the exhortation addressed to them by Marx has been obeyed instead by the capitalists.
[47] Here, for instance, is an illuminating sentence from a private report on Greek trade during the Balkan Wars: "I commercianti Greci hanno guadagnato molto durante la guerra, perchè hanno venduto tutte le merci che avevano in deposito a prezzi molto piu alti, che la gente era obbligata di comperare a cagione che non potevano importare merci straniere."
[48] Since this chapter was written I have seen a pamphlet with the following title: "The Chance for British Firms in the Rebuilding of Belgium, by a Belgian Contractor. London, Technical Journals, Limited, 27-29 Tothill Street, Westminster."
[49] One Jewish contractor supplied corn and fodder to all three armies. As soon as his Turkish customers had capitulated, he tendered for the supply of the victorious Greeks, and he still had enough to spare for the Bulgarians when they entered the town.
[50] May 17, 1915.
[51] Such "labour-saving devices," for instance, as "poached egg servers."
[52] As a matter of fact, nearly all the luxury trades cut down their scale of wages during the first year of the war; and many of these ostentatiously gave to some War Charity a fraction of the sum thus extracted from their employees. I suppose it would be libellous to give examples.
[53] Though frantic attempts to conceal it have been made since the Tax on War Profits was introduced.