The Press Monday, February 7, 1927. The Cost of Government.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18919, 7 February 1927, Page 8

The Press Monday, February 7, 1927. The Cost of Government.

We have had a good deal to eay lately about the growing cost of government, both at home and abroad. In the Dominion itself, as we have kept on pointing out, the Public Service is now the chief drag on national prosperity after our national neglect of the problems of primary production. But in Australia, also, and in Canada, in the United States, and in a marked but excusable degree in the United Kingdom, the same snd comment applies. It an address recently in New York, a member of the United -Slates Civil Service- Commission put the blame on liberty itself. Montefiqtiinu, he said, two hundred years ago, " ninde the "observation that liberty increases " taxes," and would not ivish to qualify his remark if he could be reincarnated to-day in Washington. But Montesquieu merely slated a fact; the American Btiggest?, because it is still a fact fcfter two hundred years, that it is inovitnble and unchangeable, and that " the growing burden of government " dosta " is a subject for only academic discussion, It greatly interests him, but causeis him no alarm, that the cost of government in the United States (Federal, State, and local) was nearly three times as much last year as in 1013, and almost four times as much if deductions are not made for the drop ia the valuo of the dollar. He is not alarmed, partly because "no "one seems any poorer,'' partly because he can see "many beneficial requite of this monstrous rise," and partly, as we have noted already, because facts are facts, and it is not mt*ch use "playing at Jfe Parting- " ton." It is true that the increase Of wealth in America has been rapid tmdugh during the last ten or twelve years to meet tlie rising costs of government without terrifying the taxpayer. This- increase has, in fact, been one stroflp reason of the rise, since the more we have the more we can give without being hurt, and the mOre we give without crying out the more We arc asked for. But the out'startding fact in tho cost of government is the ftumber of persons employed, and it must bo an astonishing thought to most people, even in the United States, that the number of persons ort Federal, State, and local Government pay-tolls is 3J millions. As the number ofc persons on pay-rolls of all kinds can hardly be much more than one-third of the whole population—say 40 millions at the extreme outside—one American ifl every twelve is unproductively employed. This is twice as ninny as the Bureau Of Statistics showed ten years ago, and makes even our complacent Commissioner say that if it is too many tile fault in tho pcople's-thafc" if olti*ens <'aro too nusy to vote Of too nlfie to " soil thei'/ hands with politics, machine "politics will give them the kind of "government they allow it to give "them .whether they like it or not." But the population of the United States is at least 110 millions, the population of our pominion at most a million and a half. They employ 3| fflUliota persons unproductively, or one wage*earner in twelve, we 82,000 persona, Or one wage-earner in six. They havtf doubled the number of Government employees In ten years, while we hto/a only increßMd ours by about 35 pe£ cent., and they have more than doubled their pay; but we have also doubled the pay of Ours, with 2j nlillion pounds to spare, and it amounted ten years ago to more than one-sixth of 6 per cent, of our estimated national wealth.