SIR,..—"The rather bitter tone of Mr. F. Barber's letter in
your issue of June 22nd suggests that he is already aware of the answers to the two points which "perplex and intrigue" him, and is really challenaing their validity. The crux of the inability of the middle class to "make ends meet" surely lies in their suicidal determination at all costs to enable their children to start life from the point which their own culture—in the broadest sense—has reached, and to help them to go on from there. A class which will make any sacrifice in order to allow all their children to have opportunities not' afforded to the parents is probably as valid a definition of the middle class as any. That many "workers" —do the middle class never work, by the way 2—could do the same, while maybe forgoing a television set and a stake in the pools, is shown by those who have done so.
Let us certainly hear the difficulties of the aged couple with £2 12s, per week, whose articulateness Mr. Barber probably under-estimates, but let us be quite clear that it is not the lowering of their Own living standards but the removal of so many professional opportunities for the children of all classes which the middle class-regard as a very real sacrifice to the Welfare State.—Yours faithfully, (Da.) J. B. Sratsrota. 98 Draycott Avenue, Kenton, Harrow,
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