ABSTRACT
If large schemes of social reform were to be put in hand, it was obvious that they must be financed. Many progressives around the turn of the century accepted that taxation could, in a limited sense, redistribute wealth for the greater good of society at large. Herbert Samuel (1870–1963), later to be an influential figure as the Liberal party declined, and its leader from 1931–5, argued in 1902 that State expenditure on education, housing and poverty relief benefited not only the immediate recipients but the whole community by ensuring a more efficient and contented workforce (19a). His mentor, J. A. Hobson, however, had come to accept redistributive taxation not on grounds of social welfare, but because it offered a solution to the underconsumption of economic resources.
