Wages and Dividends
Stn,—It seems to be assumed that those who receive dividends as income are the " rich " (if any of these are left). Actually, distributed dividends are paid in small amounts to many thousands of people who have worked hard all their lives, whether in private business or in a wage-earning capacity who have ploughed back their savings into sound industries in order to secure a modest competence in their old age and freedom from actual want. To do this they have lived frugally, and have denied them- selves pleasures and easements and even holidays. They now, after retirement (many of them sick or crippled or infirm), are faced not only with a reduction by nearly half of these little dividends in income tax, but by a demand for further reduction or limitation of dividends. In addition, they are taxed individually by a wicked purchase tax ; others have to suffer devaluation and constantly increasing inflation. Many are on the poverty line, and can buy only the cheapest food, no clothes or household replacements. Everything but the direst necessities are beyond their purses altogether. Coal, bad as it is, can only be afforded in very small amounts at the present fabulous price. These people envy the " lower-paid worker " his 15 a week, and wonder what he has to complain of. They see the wage-earners buying grapes, peaches, expensive toys for their children, incessant smokes, and gambling on dogs and football, going to constant cinemas and having a jolly good time. Can these luxuries be justifiably included in the cost of living ? And we, the poor, are paying for them and are being increasingly fleeced one way or another. The Government does not care a rap for our fate. The wage-earners are now our ruthless tyrants and our masters. At one end of the scale is the Prime Minister, who is spending £11,000 in doing up Chequers ; while those he is responsible for are in the direst need. To boast of a Welfare State, social justice and fair shares for all is arrant humbug.—
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