SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 73

SUNDAY READING.

Clergymen and all interested in religions work are invited to send news items and other contributions suitable for publication in this, column to “Mizp'ah,” care of Editor <f New Zealand Mail,” Wellington.' . .1

DIVES AND LAZARUS •

(From Our Special <3orrespondeht.) •; 3 ‘ • ’ "*• LONDON, ; July' 8. . One cannot live very long iii this country without having - -the conclusion f orced upon him that the wealth, of Old England is mostly in the hands of a favoured few. 1 It >is one of the first impressions that strikes the newcomer from the Antipodes when he arrives, in London, and a closer acquaintance deepens and strenghterus the thought of it. If you come from a land where millionaires are unknown, it is somewhat startling' at first to be led down some busy thoroughfare and be told by your cicerone, with an airy sweep of hisv arm, “ the Duke of lot.” The. feeling intensifies when he leads you down another" street and another, and another, and impresses upon you with a Londoner’s pride in the rentrolls of his aristocracy that .all these interminable blocks of houses, shops, theatres, and markets are the property of his Grace of SUch-and-Such. Yon begin to wonder where the odd six millions or so of Londoners come in. As a matter of fact only a few of them "come in”' at all. A return of the asseesriitfit;'. ‘ Am income tax which has just been issued L;.: : v; light, upon some curious and interesting facts regarding the distribution of wealth in the Old Country. Taking only the people who are taxed on their income on “ profits, businesses, professions and employments,” we find that the number only a handful compared with the workers whose incomes are down near the exemption limit- —£160 a year. Under the section referred to some twenty persons enjoy an income of <£50,000 a year; about 450 have incomes of over £SOOO and under £IO,OOO, and about 8000 are assessed at over £IOOO a year. This section, it should perhaps be explained, is uot concerned with incomes derived from public companies or front land values. As for the workers with no more than £l6O a year apiece, the Income Tax <’opimissioners have note of 118,000, while those between £l6O and £2OO a year number 138,000. These latter are high figures compared with the number of the plutocrats, but

they are insignificant when we think of the hordes of \people whose incomes are not taxable, being under £IOO a -year. There are eight million families in the United Kingdom, and according to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman about twelve million of people live on or below the border line wlncn separates poverty from destitution. Two facts are clear from this return. One is that the great majority .of, the .people of this- wealthy: country are poor, and the other is that the heavy burden of the income tax has (to be borne by a very .small minority of the population—of which minority the small taxpayer feels the burden most.