THE EVILS OF STATE INTERFERENCE.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 54, 31 August 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE EVILS OF STATE INTERFERENCE.

The Economist, discussing Sir William Harcourts' pronouncement at the Mansion House with regard to increased national expenditure, says : — Little by little, and year by year, the fabric of State expenditure and State responsibility is built up like a coral island— cell on cell. Every year half-a-dozen Acts of Parliment are passed which gives the State new powers and new functions, and enact that new departments and new inspectors shall supervise, and new officials carry out these powers and functions. But new departments, new inspectors, and new officials mean the expenditure of more money, and often on a most lavish scale. People sometimes talk as if the objections to Socialistic legislation were confined to the moral and political arguments that can be brought against* it — to the weakness of individual character and the loss of civic liberty. No doubt theße are objections great enough and important enough to defeat Socialism by themselves; but' it must not be forgotten that there exists also a purely fiscal argument against the increased interference of the State in matters of daily life. State action is a most costly luxury. This is a fact which should be brought home to the countryat large. Men are inclined to talk as if putting this or that trade under Government restriction and supervision, or throwing some new duty on an old department, was a mere bagatelle, which need not be seriously considered. As a matter of fact, however, all those new Bills, olauses, and sub-sections which declare that some act or other shall not be done until the consent of the Board of Trade, or the Home Office, or the Local Government Board shall have been first obtained are drafts on the National Exchequer. You cannot give an office a fresh set of duties without hiring a fresh set of officials to discharge them. But you cannot spend more money without raising more taxes. Hence the creating of new duties for the State, and the development of new means of interfering with individual action are in essence the imposition of new burdens on the taxpayer. Jlowever it is looked at economically, State interference in the dominion of civil life and with the machinery of production is an evil. Sometimes no doubt it is as necessary an evil as the. surgeon's knife, but none the less it is an evil.