The Parliamentary papers of Friday week contain an interesting analysis
of the income-tax payers. In 1909-10. it appears that 10,300 persons were liable to super- tax, and as their whole income amounted to £130,000,700, the average works out at £12,621 each. The latest income-tax return shows that the total income of 585,000 employees was £136,000,000, or an average of £233 a head. There are also 202 employees with salaries over £5,000, and twenty business men with incomes over £50,000. The feature of recent times, as Lord Goschen remarked some fifteen years ago at the Statistical Society, has been the growth of moderate incomes—the distribution of wealth rather than its concentration. The flock of golden geese is, after all, not a very large one. The birds can be easily killed, and there is not much eating on them.
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