The "Liberal" Task.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14898, 11 February 1914, Page 8

The "Liberal" Task.

Our "Liberal ,, friends would be less likely to puzzle their readers if they were to make up their minds as to what they would have the public believe in flip matter of the Reform Government's finance. If the neople whose votes they are seeking are really incapable of remembering for twenty-tour hours what they have read, then the Opposition apologists run no risk in contradicting and in replacing one fiction t)v another. But there is no section of the public, large or small, quite so conveniently adapted as that for the reception of "Liberal" arguments or "LTJoral" figures. It is, perhaps, w*<en they deal with figures chnt the anti-Reformers come up most disastrously against their limitations and the limitations of the "Liberal" case. The other day they -were saying that they did not object to the rise in the exnerkl'ture during "Mr Massey's tenure of office any more than to the rise in revenue; what they objected to was. in effect, the Government's refusal to do the dreadful things which the Opposition assured an incredulous country would be done. But tiiey have now resumed their objections to the rise in the cost of education, defence, and the other large items in the nation's annual bill.

The ta*k this time is to explain away the fact that whereas the rise in the expenditure during 1912-13, the year in which Mr Massey took office, was £741,669, tt was £997,262 in Sir Joseph Wurd's hist year of office. When this task was last .attempted (in May last) the locai organ of the Government got over tho difficulty by the simple but rather daring device of deliberately understating, by nearly a quarter of a million sterling, the increase in revenue in the year following Sir .). G. Ward's loss of office. The true figures were: — Xet Increases over locs preceding yeai: on preIn. In Ex- ceding Revenue, penditure. Jear. T)urin<r £ £ £ 1311-12 (Wp.rd) .. 763,888 997,262 133,374 1912-13 (Masscy) .. 673,108 741,660 68,561 The Opposition critic said that the rfventte in 1912-13 had only increased by £476,910, and that therefore "the " net result" was 'not so good as it " was in the preceding year." Lest any doubting raider might think of examining the figures in the "Gazette" for himself, our contemporary warned him off by saying - that "the accounts "as published in the 'Gazette' would " not be plain to the casual reader-" That pleasant little trick of falsifying official figures has been abandoned, no doubt for the time being only, by our 'Liberal" friends. They hare thought of a new way of proving that £741,669 is greater than £997.262. You do this by subtracting about £5-13,000 from tho larger sum and about £270,000 from the smaller sum, for you get this result:— £997,262 minus £5-13,262 is equal ♦-•• rs«>±,ooo. £741,669 minus £269,669 is equal to £472,000.

And since i>154.000 is less than £472,000, therefore £997,262 is less than £741.669, the horse-chestnut is indubitably a chestnut horse, Sir J. G. Ward a miraclo of economy,,and Mr Massey a dreadful spendthrift.

To perform this sort of feat on a large scale, and in other matters than finance., is, indeed, the task of "Liberalism" just now. To prove that the greater is the less, that black is white, that the Liberal legislation of the Reform Government is rankly Tory—this is what our Opposition friends are striving to do, and what they must do if they are to get the Government out. They can prove much more tremendous things on paper to their own satisfaction, but in his obstinate adherence to the view that facts are facts, and that black is not white, the common voter is sadly less "progressive" and "Liberal" than the anti-Reform Press.