IF ALL WEALTH WERE DIVIDED.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Issue 115, 15 February 1895, Page 4

IF ALL WEALTH WERE DIVIDED.

In an article on ' Rousseauism Revived,: the Quarterly reviewer tempers his delight at the downfall of Radicalism with dread at the advance of the thoroughgoing Socialist. Tho proletarian have, he says, abandoned Libeiul'sm. Just as you find a Tartar when you scratch a Russian, so under tho public guise of a Liberal M.P. you co ae upon a capitalist. Liberalism achieved its minion with the last extension of the franchise. Tho people are now passing under a now bondage to the Stato as real as the old bondage to tho feudal lords of tho soil. True, Socialists arc not united : ' There are fire-eating Progressives who do-pise tho Social Democratic Federation: tho Social Democrats contemn the Fabians ; tho Fabians, who ruminate on the imperfections of society over drawing-room tea-cups of ancient china, look on both with a bleud of benign despair and sweeter hope ; and the Anarchists, in supremo disdain, are not on speaking terms with any sect of the Progressive Alliance.' But the reviewer holds that, despite these differences, tho Socia l; st state would in any caso ' make all men socially ecjual. It would give to all men incomes of tho samo amount.' lie proceeds to state what this involves lor the United Kingdom : ' In tho event of the division of wealth which the Communist seeks, a workman at present in receipt of £7O a year would receive £110; but he would not be able to bo at leisure long. . . . There would be little happiness iu having our £7O increased to £llO I at the cost of working at least as hard j as at present, without any hope of being allowed to strike for a decrease in tiio hours of labour.' Mr Mallock estimates the income of the United Kingdom, with a view to division, at £1,200,000,000. ' Now, the people of the United Kingdom number a little over 38,000,000. The share of each person, therefore, would be about £32. As we are not all of the same age, i: id not all of the same sex, the com' it is probable, would resolve certain mitigations of equality, week to each man, 15s to each w 10a to oach boy> 9s to each gii , j •Is Od to each baby, might I - sidcred an arrangement equitn .a : j the light of reason ; but, as m women and children live in fan . a rule, we will take the family unit. It consists of four perso a half on the average, and tlievo 8,500,000 families in the United Kingdom. It would seem, then, that each family would receive an income of £ 110 ; but the tax-gatherer would not disappear with the establishment of tho commune, and if his exactions remained at the rate now current, which, as the cost of government alw..va increases with the extension of state-control, would be extraordinary, each fam : ly would bo taxed to the extent of £l6, and its net income would be £124. Our hypothetical income for every adult man, that is to say, would be reduced to 19s 6d a week ; that of every adult woman, to 14s. If, lotting moderate incomes ] with the most flagrant in- - comes, which are those of the peers ( and tho country gentlemen, of the ( National Debt and the railway com- J panics, and of the monarchy, none of 1 us would bo appreciably bettor oil. Out of the ruin of the great land- ( owners, oach adult would gain a , little over a farthing daily ; tho interest on the National Debt and die | profits of ilio railway companies would , yield him barely more ; and from tno ' confiscated income of the Monarchy he would draw sixpence halfpenny a year.