THE REAL TEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 7, 8 July 1938, Page 8

THE REAL TEST

"The production of wealth is no real test of social well-being—dis-tribution is the real test," said;. Mr. Barnes, Labour member for 'Wai-i taki, yesterday. The statement is one which calls for considerable qualification. It may be correct in application to a state of society "where wealth accumulates and men decay"; but that is nc" the state of New Zealand. Here the production of wealth—used in its wide economic sensed —is a very real part of the test of social well-being. Wealth must be produced before it can .be distributed; and a system or society which emphasises distribution without regard to the possible effect on production is just as likely to be to "hastening ills a prey " as a society which neglects distribution. The argument which disparages the importance of production in social well-being may suit the Socialist because it disregards a fact that is otherwise hard to explain—the great progress made principally by private enterprise in wealth production. He cannot contend that private enterprise has failed when that progress is so evident. But even the Socialist will err grievously if disparagement of the part played by private enterprise in production is allowed to influence practical policy. If the policy is designed to distribute what is produced more widely; by

means of grants of all kinds, financed by heavy taxation on those who figure importantly in production, ' there is more than a little danger of the volume of wealth produced failing to suffice for distribution commitments.