MIDDLE-CLASS EXTINCTION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3141, 30 October 1922, Page 7

MIDDLE-CLASS EXTINCTION.

(London Daily Telegraph.) The picture which our Berlin correspondent outlined in his despatch published yesterday is one that the least compassionate muet regard with pity. The professional and middle classes of Germany are suffering such privations on account of the depreciation of the mark as to make the observer wonder how they contrive to maintain their position at all. Our correspondent cied as an instance of the pressure of the present circumstances a friend who before the war derived from investments in Government securities an income of 24,000 marks a year—the equivalent in cash of £I2OO. On that income he could live in a comfortable villa with two or three good servants, run a small car, and take his holiday each year by the Mediterranean. Now his whole annual income would cover no more than the cost of an eveiung suit. Such meIV as university professors belong to a class which has never received remuneration comme'iiisuratc with its services, and to-day some of them are left to face life on the equivalent of less than a pound a month. Not unreasonably may it be said that they and their like are being crushed out of existence. Side by side with these heartrending stories are accounts of the fabulous fortunes accumulated by those who are taking the place of the old middle class. Such a redistribution of wealth is not, of course, peculiar to Germany, but it is there seen in all its terrible acuteiiess. In a milder form something of the same sort of process has been going on everywhere in Europe. In our islands there is no mistaking the plight in which countless middle-class householders find themselves. Unlike the manual workers, they are dependent upon an income which cannot readily be readjusted -m accordance witlr the cost of living. The burden of taxation rests heavily upon them, and the phenomenon of a diminishing birth-rate among the professional classes which was observable before the war is now a matter for general comment. Unfortunately it is a consequence of economic causes and cannot be stayed. The most" that can be done is to ensure that a section of the community whose good estate is of such high importance to the nation as a whole should suffer no handicap due to inequitable apportionment of the responsibilities of the State. Vital statistics are not figures that can be juggled with. Their tale is plain. The irresponsible and defective are breeding rapidly; the well-educat-ed and healthy middle-class families are becoming steadily smaller. That in itself is serious enough, but to it must be added the fact, brought out by Mr Austin Freeman in his recent book "Social Decay and Regeneration," that the modern growth of the bureaucracy has enlarged enormously the number of those whose intellectual training is directed to the attainment of "access-gaining" qualities. In other words, young men are tempted to concentrate on passing such examinations as will get them into the public service and so give them access to an assured income. Adventure and enterprise are thereby discouraged. Such withdrawal to comparative safety may serve for a time. But this safety will always be dependent on the efforts of those who by industry and courage build up and maintain the -nation's prosperity. In every walk of life the men whose names we most proudly remember came for the most part from middle-class homes. If the old middle class shrinks and dies another will take its place, and in time take up the inheritance of its tradition. But it will not give up without a struggle, and if we are wise we shall try by such means as are practicable to temper the conditions which are unfavorable to its persistence, and so keep alive a spirit and a force which have in the past contributed more than anything else to national prosperity and national prestige.