BRITAIN'S PRIVATE WEALTH,

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 70, 16 December 1907, Page 6

BRITAIN'S PRIVATE WEALTH,

Mr. Chiozza Money, the well-known financial expert, and i'Ve Trade champion, has been criticising the dilatori-. ness of Mr. Asquith in making a beginning with the •scheme of old age pensions foreshadowed in his Budget speech of April 18 of this year. Mr. Asquith's words on that occasion were: "It's our will go further and say it is our intention, before the close of this Parliament, if we are allowed to have our way—it is a large 'if'—to lay firm the foundations of this reform." Mr. Chiozza Money wants ' to know why so much stress was laid on the 'if we are allowed to have Our way," for in financial matters there'is no House of Lords, and the Government's majority in the Commons is very large. He says the only "if" in the matter is the "will to do." Either the country can afford old age pensioDS, or it cannot. If it can, then let a proper scheme , be devised and not,a "foundation." If the country cannot afford them, he suggests it would be well not to m'ook the aged by talking about the impossible. But, of course, as was to be expected of Mr. Money, who is nothing if he is riot statistical, he proceeds to prove that the country can easily afford old age pensions at the rate _of five shillings per week, commencing at sixty-five years of age. This age he thinks is popularly, and very properly, considered old enough for a beginning in the matter. It appears there are only about 2,100,000 men arid women aged sixty-five and upwards in the United Kingdom at the present time. To pay all of them five shillings a week would therefore cost about £27,000,000 a year, a sum which Mr. Money says is small relatively to the enormous income of the 44,000,000 British people. It would mean, as a matter of vfact, just over two-pence three farthings per week for, each of the 44,000,000 people, a-small price at which to redeem a country's debt of honour to the aged. But it is really more than-is required because —(1) A number of aged persons—soldiers, Sailors, policemen, etc.—a number represented by six figures—are al-' ready pensioned by State and City; (2) if the pension were universal, but claimable, some at least of the well-to-do would not claim it; (3) there would certainly be some, if not a great, saving in indoor and outdoor relief.' The actual cost of the pensions would probably be much less than £27,000,000, but Mr. Chiozza Money prefers not to consider this over much, holding that the Old Country can easily a£ford_ the £27,000,000 if every penny of it were called for. He proceeds to show that'the total increase in the incomes of the Income Taxpayers for 1895-1906, represented , by 5,000,000 to 5,500,000 men, women and children, as no less a sum than £268,000,000, or an average yearly increase for the eleven years of. over £24,000,000. ' Thus the income tax classes gain in income in an average year nearly as much as is needed to pay five shillings a week to every old man and wo,man aged sixty-five and over. In another way he shows that by taking a graduated income tax from one penny in the. pound on the £200-a-year-man up to two shillings in the pound on the very rich —an average of 6£ per cent, on the total incomes—some £57,000,000 of tax would be raised, being an increase On the present revenue of £26,000,000, practically] the amount required for the old age pensions. He next discloses a remarkable fact in relation to British wealth. Every year about 80,000 people die leaving estates worth £300,000,000, and of this sum £200,000,000 is left by only 4000 people! Of this £200,000,000 left yearly, the Exchequer takes In death duties £13,000,000, and Mr. Money asks: "If the old age pensions sum were to be raised entirely from this £200,000,000, and the taxation of Ike smaller estates making up the £300,000,000 were left as it is now, can it be alleged that any rich man would seriously suffer?" If then, he urges, it is as easy to raise an additional £26,000,000 from death duties .alone ae it is to raise it from income tax alone, why not raise the sum actually required, perhaps some £20,000,000 only, partly from income tax and partly from death duties? All this, of course, seems vastly conclusive, but it must not'be forgotten by the average reader that people of the proclivities of Mr. Chiozza Money can make figures prove anything. There are other sides to the question which the enthusiastic statist does not concern himself about. At the same time the feeling is growing that Mr. Asquith and the Liberal Government will find it difficult to avoid their obligations in this matter of such moment to a great part of the nation. '