To the staggering tax load Britons have been carrying, this week a few more pounds were added, not to make Britain's budget balance (which is impossible) but to forestall threatening inflation. Into the House of Commons strode Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Kingsley Wood with a new war budget, calling for a record outlay of £4,207,000,000 ($16,828,000,000) in the next twelve months. The basic income-tax rate was upped from 42½% to 50%.
Britain will add some 2,000,000 small-wage earners to the tax rolls: personal exemptions were cut from £170 to £140 ($560) for married taxpayers, from £100 to £80 ($320) for...