“All rich people object to income-tax, of course; - they like to pay as much as a poor man pays on their tea, sugar, and tobacco, - nothing on their incomes.

Whereas, in true justice, the only honest and wholly right tax is one not merely on income, but property; increasing in percentage as the property is greater. And the main virtue of such a tax is that it makes publicly known what every man has, and how he gets it.

For every kind of Vagabonds, high and low, agree in their dislike to give an account of the way they get their living; still less, of how much they have got sewn up in their breeches. It does not, however, matter much to a country that it should know how its poor Vagabonds live; but it is of vital moment that it should know how its rich Vagabonds live …”

Fors Clavigera (Letter Seven: Charitas, Denmark Hill, 1st July 1871)

The Guild of St George is the charitable trust founded by John Ruskin in England.