ORGY OF SPENDING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 751, 26 August 1929, Page 9

ORGY OF SPENDING

industrial upheaval not HEEDED LONDON WRITER’S OPINION < -Australian and N.Z. Press Association) flecd. 9 5 a.m. LONDON, Saturday. Tim “Westminster Bank Review” contains an interesting article on the subject of pre-war and post-war spendin which the writer says nothing tends more gravely to perplex a seri°us observer of contemporary British »°oia 1 life than the paradox of continutHia industrial depression on the one ‘'•and and increased popular spending on the other Coal-mines are closed or partially closed, cotton-mills are working short time, and appalling statistics of unemployment are published; but yet there is evidence of the spending power of the country being greater than ever. Motor-cars crowd the streets, these cars by no means belonging exclusively to the wealthy class. The People are better clothed, and the standard of life has generally been raised. The writer finds the chief explanation of this paradox in the great change, which has taken place since the war in the actual distribution of 'yealth; in other words, through a redistribution of wealth, the spending Power of the mass of the community has been vastly increased. This redistribution not merely consists of higher tvages, but also of the enormous taxation of large incomes and estates, provides for large Government expenditure.