U.K. elite soldiers on

Press, 11 June 1977, Page 7

U.K. elite soldiers on

NZPA staff correspondent London A public-school education I and a degree from Oxford or Cambridge is still the best possible passport to Britain’s < most influential jobs, accord- , ing to a pamphlet published in London. “Inequality in Britain Today,” published by the Labour Research Depart- : merit, claims that, control by 1 a “ruling class” of Britain’s courts, armed forces. Government departments, and the police, has led to politi- ■ cal inequality. In evidence the pamphlet! says that at least 83 per cent of British High Courth judges went to public! schools, and 84 per cent' went to Oxford or Cambridge. _ J

Some credence is given to the belief that wealth in Britain has been redistributed in recent years. The trend is shown mainly by the increase in owneroccupier bouses, which in-1 creased as a proportion of! all houses from 29 per cent] in 1952 to 52 per cent in! 1974. This is coupled with the fact that the rise in the] value of homes during the last 20 years has been! greater than the increase in! the value of company shares increasing the total value iof homes as a proportion of! i gross personal wealth from ; 19.1 per cent in 1961, to 38.8 ■per cent in 1974. But the pamphlet, which; I is based on statistical Infor- 1 .mation amassed by the; 'Royal Commission inquiring

i into the distribution of ini come and wealth, says that ■ the most significant “statistics are those showing the ’ concentration of ownership ■ in company shares and land. J In 1974, the top 1.25 per ’(cent of the population [(about 500,000 people) I owned 70 per cent of all I shares in personal ownJership, and nearly 80 per i!cent of all the land. t Extending this slightly in lithe same year, the top 3.5 i(per cent of the population sjowned 90 per cent of the s shares and a huge 96 per ficent of the land. i; With the growth of in- >■ stitutional share-holding i (banks, insurance companies Hand the like) personal share ■'ownership has dropped since ‘■1963 to 42 per cent of the /total.