BRITAIN'S PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 12

BRITAIN'S PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.

The January number of the “Quarterly Review” contains a remarkable article on “The Cost of Government,” which everyone concerned for the future of the country’s credit ought to read. Modern British taxes are the Serpents which threaten to strangle the British Lao coon and his sons. Official complacency will not much longer be able to dispose of the question by contemptuous allusions to “ignorant impatience of taxation.” Says the writer:—“The average householder, called upon to meet what appear to be insatiable demands for taxes and rates, ask® whether he obtains value for money. He has only dim perceptions of how it is disbursed. He abandons as hopeless all attempts to understand the mysteries of administration or to fathom the bottomless pit of expenditure. He reads in the daily papers of millions being voted by a handful of Members in the House of Commons in a feAV minutes, and with little or no discussion, for purposes said to be imperative. He may take a casual glance at one of the plethoric blue books issued by the ton every year; but the details are bewildering, and the columns of figures repellant. Ho sees gigantic edifices arising in Whitehall, and is told that they are intended to accommodate hundreds of clerks in some branch of Dicken’s ‘circumlocution office.’ He is confronted all over the country by palatial structures known as town halls, municipal buildings, asylums, pauper village schools, and public buildings of various kinds. Their origin, methods of work, and the practical results are beyond his comprehension. But the unpleasant facts remain that he is paying a war income-tax of a shilling in the pound in time of peace; that he is assessed for house-duty at eightpence on his rack-rental in addition to a chilling in in the pound as property tax if he happens to own his house ; that the indirect imposts on tea and other necessaries are irritating; and that, taking the country as a whole, his local rates have increased fifty per cent, in twenty years, and show no signs' of abatement. Less than a generation ago, rates and taxes were about one-sixth of the rent, except in villages, where the proportion was lees; they now average nearly one-lialf of the rental, and they threaten to equal it in amount.”

These general statements are supported by an overwhelming array of figures which, the taxpayer and ratepayer will find it worth while to study carefully. It is estimated that the liabilities of the Imperial Exchequer are roughly £1,020,000,000; the obligations of municipalities in the United Kingdom £400,000,000. The. national debt, therefore, really amounts to over £1,500,000,000. Whereas in the year 1865-6 every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom paid on an average £2 2s lOd in taxes, the amount under the corresponding head for 1905-6 was £3 5s 7d. Add the rates to the taxes, and the imposts levied per head of the population come to nearly £7. The augmentation of burdens has been partly due to causes which are not less disquieting than the augmentation itself. “Insane and feebleminded paupers have increased without intermission since they were first recorded in 1873,” the number, according to the latest return, being 109,100. They cost the ratepayers on an average 10s 5d a week each—in Croydon, the charge runs up to 16d lid a head.

As the writer says, the. question involved is not one for statisticians only, but for every man wdio claims to be a patriot, patriotism in this case as in every other being enlightened selfishness. With a defective banking system, with a weakening of national and municipal credit, and with a decreasing margin to meet any sudden crisis, such as a great European war, our portentous public expenditure is fraught with grave risks. A grave responsibility, says the “Quarterly,” rest© on statesmen and administrators, and all who form and guide public opinion. “Professional politicians may appeal in fluent rhetoric to popular ignorance, and amiable enthusiasts, dominated by one idea, but unable to take comprehensive views may propound their social panaceas, tut the questions at issue are broader and deeper than they imagine. We have referred already to the exercise of a rigid economy in the great spending departments of the public service, like the Army and Navy; the restoration to the House O'f Commons of full financial control; an arrest of the tendency to borrow' large sums for local purposes (repayment. of which should he spread over not more than thirty years, or one generation); the vast outlay upon experimental and structural w r orks, the rapid growth of officialism, and the craze for municipal trading. There is no heroic method of dealing with the complex difficulties; but it may be urged that the same common sense and business rules should be applied to national and local expenditure that are considered to be imperative in ordinary life. Commercial men do mot conduct

their affairs in the reckless fashion often displayed in public administration; or, if they do, the goal of bankruptcy, is speedily reached Domestic outgoings have to be regulated by income; and there is no valid reason why thia salutary rule should not control the financial affaire of the Legislature and of local authorities. Instead of this the first thing done is to decide how much shall be spent, and then the question of ways and means is considered. It is therefore not Surprising that the nation has become improvident and wasteful, and is now confronted by problems whose solution will require the ability, the energy, the firmness, and the ingenuity of the wisest statesmen that this country can produce for many years to come.”