MUDDLING GOVERNMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 8, 10 July 1922, Page 6

MUDDLING GOVERNMENT

The cry of extravagance raised against the Government of the United Kingdom is now being heard in the United States, where Senator Borah is utilising Lord Inchcape's indictment of British extravagance as a stick with which to beat the Government of his own country. In a time of deflation, no Government is courageous enough to retrench sufficiently and at the same time to retrench with sufficient discrimination. Retrenchment usually follows the line of least resistance; but, though tjie perfect Government has yet to be found, some Governments are worse than others. At any time during the last two years it would have seemed that the British Government was the most profligate in the world and the most lenient to its political friends. Now, however, Senator Borah has discovered that in this respect, as in every other respect, they do things bigger in America. As there are over a million strikers in the States, much strike violence, and a good deal of smouldering unrest, Senator Borah's attack may be timely. In fact, its timing may be as much the result of political as of economic factors. The Republican Adminis-. tration has been long enough in office to provide targets to hit; and it is higb time that somebody started to hit them. Political indictments of economic impolicy derive their intensity as much from campaign exigencies as from economic need; though to say that is not to say that they are lacking in foundation. The sad part of it is that, whatever the faults of a Republican Government, no one expects that, in matters of this kind, a Democrat Government would be materially different.