One common mistake that many people have made in this; they have thought that it would be a very good thing if everybody had exactly the same amount of money, no matter whether they worked hard or lived quite idly. They forget that very few people would work at all if it were not for the money their work brings them, and that without work there would be no money. And they have imagined that if all the money in the country were equally divided everybody would be rich.

Now that is a very great mistake, because there simply is not enough money to make everybody rich. If it were shared equally all round every one them would, on the basis of the calculations made in 1935, receive only about Rs. 65 a year. Today with a rise in the price level it might be Rs. 150 a year.

That may be more than you receive now or it may be less, but would certainly not make you really rich. It is quite true that there are in this country a small number of very rich people; but they are so few in comparison with the whole population that even if you flattened out that great French mountain Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe, and spread it over the whole of France you would only raise the level of the land by about six inches. See if you can think out what that has to do with the question I have been talking about.

Many people, unfortunately, seem to think also that Government can always pay out money quite easily and in any quantity, and they forget, or else they do not know, that the Government can only pay out money that it has received in taxes --- Money that the tax-payer has had to work for.