THE LANDLORD AND THE WAGE-EARNER.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Srn,—Mr. Buchanan asks how be can retrench in order to meet taxation without injuring others. The answer surely is that he cannot do so, but that the injury so inflicted is merely a matter of readjustment, and, from an economic point of view, negligible. The money which but for old-age pensions he would have paid to the local shopkeeper goes into the same till, or similar ones, through the hands of the pen- sioners who receive it. The gardener whom he dismisses because of the Insurance Act should find employment in the grounds of a Sanatorium. The labour required and recom- pensed to produce a loaf of bread is the same in any case: it is naturally by no means the same thing who owns and eats the loaf when it is made. It is quite possible to transfer existing wealth from one class to another by means of taxation: the objection to the policy lies, as the Spectator has often pointed out in the fact that if such taxation is reckless it strikes at those roots of due reward and security which alone make the growth of wealth possible. When this is the case the poor in the long run are amongst those who suffer most, for the goose has been killed which laid the golden eggs.—
Previous page
