§ It is one of the objects of any system of national taxation that every member of the community should contribute his fair share of the expenditure of a Government, which in the last resort is controlled and directed by the popular will. But it is obvious that such a change as I have described without any change in taxation, may upset the financial equilibrium, and by altering the proportionate burdens of different classes or individuals may render inequitable and unjust a system of taxation which in other times and with other tastes was both fair and reasonable. I remember that when my right hon. friend the Member for West Bristol imposed the duty on sugar an 1054 hon. Member confided to me that for the first time he had become an indirect taxpayer. He neither drank alcohol, nor did he smoke; coffee lie never touched, and tea disagreed with him. An occasional cup of cocoa may perhaps have contributed some small toll to the revenue; but for the rest he went scot free. I do not doubt that the hon. Member was grateful to my right hon. friend for the opportunity which he afforded him of contributing more nearly his fair share to our national revenue; but it is clear that if the principles or the tastes of that hon. Member were to prevail among large sections of the people, our present distribution of taxation would become increasingly unfair, and others besides my right hon. friend the Member for West Bristol might be obliged to call new taxes into existence to redress the balance of the old. For the present, however, I only desire to call the attention of the Committee to a tendency which appears to me to be of importance in any review of our national finances, and which has left its mark on the results of the preceding year.