REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
As an able and lucid account of the redistribution of wealth in Great Britain since pre-War days, and of the counter-balancing influence of thrift, the address recently delivered by Sir Harold Bellman at the Austrian Institute of Insurance Science in Vienna deserves to be widely read. Sir Harold, who is President of the International Congress of Building Societies, and therefore speaks with great authority on the thrift movement, made a cnmparison between British and Austrian affairs, drawing attention to certain features which are common to the two countries. Both nations, he pointed out, had seen the passing of a once wealthy class and had experienced the need for increased saving. Describing the British position, Sir Harold started with the Liberal social reform programme in the years immediately preceding 1914, and the increased taxation of the well-to-do which this programme involved. The necessity for financing War expenditure and the social service outlays of post-War years' was responsible for still larger burdens being placed on the richer members of the community, with the result that those who had previously provided the bulk of the nation's savings were unable to save on an adequate scale. At the same time, the fall in prices caused by post-War deflation, and the resistance of wage rates to depression after a certain point had been reached, left the wage-earner with a considerable net gain. The rich were therefore considerably less rich over a term of years and the wage-earners much better off. In confirmation of this view, Sir Harold Bellman quoted Professor Bowley's statement that in 1924 the very rich in Britain had less than half their pre-War income, allowing for tax and price changes, while the poorest of the working classes had gained most on balance.
Previous page
