Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 1930. SOCIAL SERVICES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 120, 17 April 1930, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 1930. SOCIAL SERVICES.

The British Chancellbr of the Exchequer, Mr Philip Snowden, replying- to a deputation of the Unam tiers of Commerce on Thursday,, February 27, made some very disquieting statements concerning- the growth of the national expenditure. He pointed out that the debt services and the upkeep of the defence forces pressed heavily upon the country and, speaking of the social services, said he did not suppose that anyone would suggest that the existing expenditure upon those services should be curtailed. In many cases, he said, they involved automatic increases year by year, which it is not possible to prevent. Quite frankly, he added that “the fear of increased taxation was a deterrent to industrial enterprise,” but increased taxation Jhjid become necessary. Two days later, the estimates for .the Civil Service and the Revenue Departments made their appearance. They represented a net addition of £44,531,449 to the national expenditure. Some £15,000,000 of this new expenditure is due to the de-rating scheme passed by the Baldwin Government, which has given very substantial relief to industry. That is provided for by a rating relief suspense account, whicli has been built up out of Budget surpluses and the proceeds of tlie petrol tax. That account was in credit to tlie extent of £2.0,000,000 at the beginning of the financial • year and the £15,000,000 of tlie increased expenditure will be met out of tfiis fund. But some £29,531,449 of new expenditure, must be met out of ordinary revenue, consequently there is no escape for the country from increased taxation, which is mainly due to the increased expenditure upon the social services. The growth of that expenditure is simply appalling. It would seem to feed upon itself. In 1891 these services cost Great Britain just under £23,000,000. In 1928, according to the Drage Return, as it is termed (which is issued annually) the cost., after deducting war pensions, had risen to £309,000,000, and the expenditure is still rising. Last year (excluding war pensions) the expenditure upon these, services was £322,059,000. This year, it will increase still further. The extension of widows’ pensions provided for by the Socialist amendment of the Unionist. Act gives pensions to - 500,000 widows, irrespective of whether they need them or not; increased allowances are to be made to the unemployed, and the reduction of the working hours of miners, provided for in the Mines

Bill, is placing' an additional burden on the country. The estimated cost of the additional expenditure during- the current fhianr cial j-ear is ,£20,967,000. A proposal "made that the. State should provide family allowances at the rate of 5s a week, for.-every child from birth to the school leaving age, which has emanated from the Independent Labour Party, would, Mr Snowden stated in I'eply to a question in the House of Commons, cost the country £140,000,000 a year, and Mr E. F. Wise, M-P-. a Socialist member supporting the proposal, says .“the nation can afford at least another £200,000,000, per annum for its social.services, even on the present restricted basis of national production, without, interfering in the least with the proper provision for depreciation of existing capital and for new savings, and that nearly all of this could be found by the taxation of the higher incomes of £IOOO a year and over.” •

LEADING TO PAUPERISATION.

Mr Geoffrey Drage who, for many years past, has been engaged m combating the political practice of “wholesale pauperisation,” and actively fighting for public economy and national efficiency, . and whose activities were responsible for the “Drage Return,” to which we have already alluded, has, in his new book, “Public Assistance,” given “a multitude of useful facts-which,” Mr Harold Cox says in reviewing the book in the Sunday Times, “illustrate the seriousness of the present policy.” “Indiscriminate charity,” Mr Drage rightly says, “produces pauperisation and tends to the degradation of the country.” He quotes from the report of the Poor Law Commission, as a result of which “ablebodied applicants, for relief were obliged to prove their destitution by going into the workhouse.” He mentions that “within two years after the workhouse test was applied, twelve unions in Kent which had been maintaining 3512 able-bodied paupers found the number reduced to five,” and “it was ascertained that most of those who had been drawing outdoor relief were then earning a very comfortable living.” Mr Drage contends that “wherever and whenever relief from poverty can be easily obtained, poverty grows. We have had (he says),, as; a result of waves of political sentiment, a succession of Acts passed in the present century, all devoted to supplying, at the public expense, to people supposed to be poor, things that they ought to provide for themselves> by their <own industry and thrift.”. All this is very true, and under the, existing system of Parliamentary Government, and the ' appeals made to • the constituencies at, every election, the contending political parties seem to vie, the one with the. other, in offering increased inducements in the way of social services for the support of the electors. Men lean too much on the State instead of making the provision they should do for themselves. * They ignore the primary fact that the • State can actually offer them nothing, unless it takes the money from the country and charges it also with the cost of collecting and distributing it, thus increasing the cost of government. Although the cost of the social services in this country is nothing like as heavy as it is in Great Britain, it continues to mount up out of all proportion to the actual necessities of the people and political parties are judged, not so much by their honest administration of the country S affairs and the economies they practise in the national expenditure, but on the largesse they are prepared to distribute in the shape of increased pensions and subsidies and the assistance they are prepared to give toi any and. every movement the promoters of which should be relying upon their own efforts and resources for their prosecution. There is a very real danger that “the policy of robbing the taxpayer for supposed benefit of the poor will (as Mr Drage says the extension of the policy in Great Britain) inevitably defeat itself unless it is rigidly controlled. The poor will multiply and industry decline until finally we reach universal poverty.”