§ Now I come to the second of the two main objectives which I set before the Committee some time ago. The burden of direct taxation falls with injurious effect upon the enterprise of the nation. It is a delusion to suppose that the evil is confined to the classes who actually pay. It manifests itself in all sorts of ways, obscure but none the less traceable ways, it manifests itself in a contraction, and above all in a relaxation of effort, and in the loss of saving power. Thus it descends tier by tier in varying degrees upon every class of the population, and it reveals itself, I am confident, to some extent at least, in the present grave and exceptional unemployment from which this country is suffering. In factories, mines, blast furnaces and shipyards, we see this evil of unemployment, the preoccupation of every public man in every party. No doubt there are many causes for it. No doubt some of those causes are beyond our reach. Amongst 85 those which are within our reach, the existing high rate of taxation must certainly be counted. It is an undoubted fact that the country with the highest rate of unemployment is also the country where the taxes on income are at the highest level, and where at the highest level they are collected in full. Are you sure it is only a coincidence? I am sure it is not. Of all the remedies we are advised to apply to our industrial malady, some wise and some not wise, none is so simple, so well tried, so efficacious and so safe as the diminution of taxation falling upon profits and production.