POST-WAR BRITAIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 17 May 1941, Page 4

POST-WAR BRITAIN

| AMERICAN VISITOR’S PREDICTION NO VIOLENT CHANGES IN SOCIAL STRUCTURE (United Press Association] Auckland. May 16 There will be no violent changes in the social structure of Britain after the war, said Sir George Sansom, visiting Professor of Oriental History at Columbia University, a through passenger in the Monterey. Though material reconstruction after the war would not prove difficult, reconciliation of the various idealogical views would be. There would be a redistribution of wealth, largely through taxation. Sir George has for many years been a counsellor on economic and financial questions with the British Foreign Office, and is now on his way to Japan. He said the reason for his belief that material reconstruction would not prove difficult was that the whole world would be so anxious to get things right again and that the means of production were so enormous. “I don’t think anyone can foretell with any degree of accuracy what will happen after the war,” Sir George continued. “My guess is that if the countries which have consumed much of their wealth in the war are left with reduced wealth and volume of commodities, obviously there will not be a question of Socialism or anything else like it. It will be a question of sharing out wealth, and that is already being done now through taxation.” In what manner and to what degrees ther. would be a redistribution of wealth in Britain no one could foresee. The people of Britain would be engrossed in the post-war years with rebuilding their homes and factories and there would be only gradual changes in the social structure. He believed they would be so occupied with reconstruction that the possibility of mass emigiation to the Dominions would not arise.