IF ALL SHARED ALIKE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6493, 13 April 1908, Page 3

IF ALL SHARED ALIKE

ANOTHER DELUSION SHATTERED. of the predauemt delusions is that, if the nation's wealth were to be equally divided, it would provide a comfortable income for all. Four acute statisticians (says tho '(Daily Mail"), who have been calculating what each inhabitant would receive, confessed themselves astonished at a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, London, at tho result of their investigations. In place of comfort and ease, each member of society would have to eke out a lean living on a daily pittance of a few coppers. Briefly stated, the figures arrived at by. these four statisticians—Mr Chiozza Money, M.F., Mr Bernard Mallet. Mr \V. J. Harris, and Mr W. H. Bailey—fine themselves down, when reduced to the limit of a daily income, as derived from investment, to the following meagre sums;— Per Day. Mr W. H. Bailey 9d. Mr Chiozza Money, M.B. ... 'Bd. Mr W. J. Harris 5d Mr Bernard Mallet IJd Mr Atallet’s estimate, delivered almost apologetically, was a new one. "It only shows us," declared a humorist who was present, "that hard work must still bo our portion." But each statistician is ready to admit that his figures are tentative—that, in fact, a great deal of wealth does not figure in the death duties, upon which and other "approximations” they have based their calculations.