THE WEALTH PRODUCED BY OTHERS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In your issue of last week "I. L. P.," in a reply to the Rev. G. A. Studdert Kennedy, says : "Do they, for instance, consider it is moral for an able-bodied citizen to live in idleness from the wealth produced by others." Now, no reasonable, thinking person, whether he possesses or professes Christianity or not, considers it moral for an able-bodied citizen to live in idleness from the wealth produced by others. So why ask such an inept, fatuous question ? I would like to know what in "I. L. P.'s" opinion is an able-bodied citizen, and what percentage out of forty-two millions. Someone at some time or other must have provided the capital—father, mother or relatives.
I commenced work in the coal mine before I had reached the age of twelve. I am not a high-paid official ; simply an ordinary miner, who has had only the average wage since I commenced work in the mine. Thousands have made more than me in the mine. To-day—this is the point I want to bring out—my fellow-workmen would say that I am just in my prime, yet the house I possess and live in could be sold for £600 to-morrow, while my other invested savings, plus my furniture, would bring me over £1,009. Now, if my estate, real and personal, were realized and invested in some profitable 'productive concern, for my personal gain, of course, would "I. L. P." contend that my action was immoral ?
Re the Church's Founder, I would like to reply to another sentence referred to by "I. L. P." That would mean more space, but my reply is in Matthew's Gospel xxiii. 44-46; Matt. xiii. 12—words which would come with ill grace from
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