LETTER : High tax means low growth

I CHEERED when I read Polly Toynbee's defence of the welfare state. But even she seems to write from the assumption that welfare is an indulgence by the strong for the weak, rather than the fundamental organising principle of our community. It is the principle that human beings are equal in their humanity, that everyone contributes to the community and is entitled to share its benefits, and that the wealth of a nation is a free people, physically healthy, well-educated, self- confident and self-respecting.

Michael Reeves

Gravesend, Kent