WCP7229

[1]

Broadstone, Dorset¹

Dec^er. 30th. 1903

Alfred E. Skeen Esq,

Dear Sir

To your two first questions I answer, emphatically, NO. The third is of no importance, because I believe that all duties are evils, that the present proposals are merely to distract attention from the results of the S. African War,² and that the reasons for opposing them usually given by the Liberals are for the most part as fallacious as those in support of them. The only rational system is one of absolute free trade, abolishing all our Customs & Excise with these thousands of officials & millions of expenditure, & ^to raise all taxation direct by a progressive Income Tax on the surplus of all Incomes above [2] a fixed sum — say £500 — & progressing at such a rate as to absorb the whole surplus of Incomes above say £20.000.

See Morrison Davidson's clever tract — "Bluffing the Foreign Devils" (3d) for a fine exposure of the whole of Chamberlain's³ fiscal craze[?]

Yours very truly \ Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

P.S.

Radicals sh^[oul]d. work as one man for the above Progressive Income Tax & Land Nationalisation.

A.R.W.[signature]