Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, JULY 23, 1923. WORLD’S RICH MEN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIV, Issue 9874, 23 July 1923, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, JULY 23, 1923. WORLD’S RICH MEN.

The aggregation of wealth, with all the evil it represents, is far more obtrusive .and dangerous to-day than it was before the Great War, which was waged to destroy it. Prior to the war it was pointed out that wealthy men, men of influence, men prominent and powerful in politics, owned shares in the conspicuous munition and armament factories of Britain, Germany, and other countries. Therefore, war was beneficial to them. It brought trade. The war flooded hundreds of millions sterling into their pockets. It created a brotherhood, of new rich. While the millions of humans were struggling and dying* on the battlefields and other millions were mortgaging their possessions and their future to finance that war, there were in the silent background still other millions steadily cornering the wealth of the world. Before the war one spoke with breathless astonishment of a man with ten millions. To-day Henry Ford is the holder of wealth estimated at £120,000,000 to £500,000,000. He made it out of motors, which the war boomed. J. D. Rockefeller comes next with £100,000,000. Oil made him, and oil was made a vital necessity at any price by the war. Let us put little Percy Rockefeller alongside of him. He possesses £20,000,000, and he made it out of oil. The two Rockefellers together stand for £120,000,000, like

Henry Ford. The Duke of Westminster is the land magnate of London. He is worth £30,000,000 or £40,000,000, and how much of the increment of liis millions came out of the war it is hard to say. Let us get into France. Sir Basil Zaharoff (of Vickers) is the big plutocrat there. His wealth amounts to 20 or 25 millions, and he made it out of armament. Alongside of him we put Herr Stinnes, the German, whose name lias figured lately in connection with the financial politics of liis country and his supposed ambitions to renew Germany’s foreign trade. He is worth almost anything over 20 millions, and he made it out of ships and steel, which the war boomed. Has Japan any outstanding millionaires ? She has Baron Mitsui and Baron K. Iwasaki, each worth 20 millions, made out of those twin provenders of war—ships and steel. There is T. B. Walker, a lumber king of America. He has an estate worth perhaps 40 millions,. Tobacco stands for 20 millions to J. B. Duke, of America, and to-

bacco enjoyed a frenzied whirlwind of popularity when the war was raging. In the same America we may mention G. F. Baker as a type of the men representing railroads and steel. He is accredited with 20 millions. In banking, whose pickings from the war it is difficult to estimate, we find the Rothschilds (France and elsewhere) with 50 to 100 millions, and the Vanderbilts and Astors in America with 20 millions to each family. There ; /t'e so many millionaires in Britain that sometimes 20 die in a year and we do not miss them. Twenty of them died in 1922, leaving estates totalling 35| millions. It seems to take time to become a millionaire, and the pastime is apparently healthy, for the average age of the score of them was over 74 years. The power for good or evil of a millionaire must he immense. Take Henry Ford. His nett income is about 25 millions a year (which really represents 500 millions capital). Doubtless he has benefited the world by his supply of a cheap

car, but there are other things he could do. His 25 millh used as he would know ’ use them, could mo 1 - like New Zee 1 nrosnerity. ’ , wtee the fear of |)ovi,. .vOttM he . pushed info the j*tcfe§iofrflid - . s[e could-, with his apparent wealth, pay off the naof this .Dominion twice over or pay thiuequarters o!f ! the 'total debt of Australia and ‘retain "enough to keep him m comfort. He could take one of the immense Pacific islands and

make its native population—as fa?r as money could do it people |te be envied. Directed into other h channels by a nursing” system he I .-could probably save a million lives per amium. Unfortunately, Ford and others seem to have their minds monopolised in the task of building up the glory of their own successes. It is tnax which made them rich. How much of the various mdlionaires promptings stand at the hack the world’s politics and international bickerings and wars may never be known. But the danger, if danger it be, is fast (expanding.