THERE are two schools of thought about the best way of dealing with the treasury deficit. Either by drastically reducing government spending or by setting in motion a programme of necessary building work to get money moving.

In the first instance, cuts in spending, whether in the civil sector or in the military, means many more people in the job market, something which the Government claims, will be taken up by the private sector.

With the second method, the Government will have to put its hand in its pocket, get more people into work and hopefully kick-start the economy. As a result, it would generate more from taxes than it is spending.

The trouble with the first idea is that there will be more people on benefit and fewer people paying tax and, with lower spending power, reduced spending on goods, which in turn reduces income from tax even further.

Are there no mathematicians out there who can work out a formula to say which idea would produce the desired result?

When I was young, the major part of the workforce was employed in manufacturing while their wives stayed at home to run the family. Since that time, the bulk of repetitive jobs have been taken over by computers or machines.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t think of any form of work that will, at the present time or into the future, employ the sort of numbers that manufacturing needed in the past and, with females now being such a large part of the workforce, their needs have to be catered for as well, unless we turn the clock back and the women stayed at home.

DERRICK HOLT, Fortnam Close, Headington, Oxford