CUTTING DOWN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 22, 27 January 1922, Page 5

CUTTING DOWN.

COALITION TO ECONOMISE. DRASTIC RECOMMENDATIONS. (By Cable.-J*res3 AssKtaOon.^Oopj-rtglit.) LONDON, January 26. According to a well informed report the Cabinet haa t ccopted in the main the recommendations of the committee appointed to consider departmental economies, of which Sir Eric Ueddes was chairman. The proposed cuts amount to £80,000,000, comprised undeT the following heads: Education, £18,000.000; social and military, £52,000,000; agriculture, trade, police, and prisons, £10,000,000. Furthermore, policy alterations consequent on tho*decisions of the Washington Conference and the substitution of aeroplanes for cavalry are expected to save a further £20,000"000. With the saving of £75,000,000 made by the departments apn"-t from the recommendations of the Ijeddes Committee, this will enable the Budget to be balanced. Mr. Winston Churchill, opening the 1020 Club, established by Coalitionists, said that the report of the (leddes ( ommiltee was a fine, massive and comprehensive piece of work. He did not say that he agreed with it, but it would be published directly the Government had reached definite conclusions regarduig the estimates they would put before Parliament. There would be reductions of expenditure on an enormous scale. Dike the Washington decisions, the Irish settlement and post-war reconstruction this saving would stand to the credit, of the Coalition. The country would have no admiration for men who stood with their hands in their pockets and jeered, sneer.-d. and carped at those who were doing the work. The sole object of the speeches of Viscount Crey and Mr. Asquith at the recent gathering of the Independent Liberals was to excite partisanship by fault finding with a (lovemment which was dealing with world events of a. prodigious and unprecedented complexity. The country should be profoundly thankful that it had come safely through those enormous trials and perils with greater strength than any other nation in the world.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)