DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 88, 13 March 1941, Page 7

DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

TOWARDS SMALL BUSINESS.

ADVOCACY IN AMERICA

■(10.20) WASHINGTON, Marcia 11. The suggestion by Mr O’Mahoney, chairman* of the Federal Monopoly Committee that Congress should call a conference of business, labour, farm and consumer leaders to draft a nat ■ tional economic constitution that would abolish economic uncertainties “which seem to threaten even our political system” ■ is explained in the following quotation from his statement:— “It appears that the great bulk of the wealth and income of the country is owned by corporations; that .an overwhelming percentage of this is owned by comparatively few corporations; that stock ownership in these corporations is not substantially distributed among the people of the country, and, finally, that dividends paid by ’ these’ corporations go to a very small proportion of the population. Mr O’ Mahoney stressed the enormous importance of the over-concentration of wealth in the hands of a few vast corporations. The country had passed completely from individual to corporate ownership of wealth and dividend distribution. , ~ “Not only do the corporations own the great bulk of industrial and commercial assets arid income, but within the corporate structure itself concentrations are progressing. Commerce Department statistics andl testimony have proved that only ten States have assessed valuations greater than the total assets of the Metropolitan Lite Insurance Company and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Large corporations tended at a rapidly accelerated rate to invest then . surpluses in Government funds. inns si owl v. as the concentration proceeds, the flow turns away from organised business towards the Government, the inevitable and inescapable result of such a process is the final triumph or bif government and the destruction ol what we call the private enterprise evstem We need a programme which will set free for productive enterprise Hie unimagined energies of the most ntouressive people which ever inhabited this globe. New business and small enterprises are necessary for the ■purpose of encouraging now employment and a wider distribution oi wealth.” _____