THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3115, 2 July 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH.

Andrew Carnegie, the millionaire iron manufacturer of America, recently preached a sermon in a New York Church on the " Gospel of Wealth." In the course of his remarks he said : " The gospel of wealth is comprised in a few words. Surplus wealth ie a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the ,good of the community from which it was derived. It teaches that the man who dies possessed of millions of available wealth, which was free and his to administer during his lifetime, dies disgraced. It recognizes that men must keep their capital in business as long as they labour, for capital is the tool bj which they work wonders, but beyond the capital necessarily so employed, the aim of the millionaire should bo to die poor. To use his surplus wealth for objects which commendtheinselves to the administrator as best calculated to promote the genuine improvement of his fellows is the best possible solution of the question of wealth and poverty. Those info whose hands surplus) wealth flows thus become trustees and administrators of the public. "The question arises, how are the hoarders who evade the gospel of wealth to be reached—those who fail to administer their surplus as a trust for the good of their fellows ? We must let the worker alone during his life, but after his death the State should step in and demand its share of his hoard. Through a graduated system of taxation every fortune left by the hoarders should contribute of the State in proportion to its size; small amounts left to those dependent upon the decedent being exempt, but the scale rising by steps until of enormous fortunes reaching into many millions, it should be decreed that 'onehalf goes to the privy coffers of the State. This is a proposition which the laws of Venice exacted from the shylocks. Our modern shylocks should be made to contribute at least as much."