AMERICAN BIGNESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22612, 2 July 1935, Page 8

AMERICAN BIGNESS

It is consistent with the ideal of bigness which is cherished by so many American citizens that the Treasury deficits should for the second year in succession assume mammoth proportions. “Bigness in size,” the Secretary of Commerce of the United States said on a recent occasion, “ is an inescapable and fundamental factor in our national economy.” Throughout practically the whole of the fiscal year it was obvious that the operations of the Administration for the twelve months would lead to a heavy balance on the wrong side of the account. A New Zealand statesman many years ago coined a phrase which passed into political currency when he asserted that the party that was then in power was galloping to a deficit. If there was ever an Administration that deliberately galloped to a deficit, the present Administration in the United States is that one. In the picturesque terms of the American chronicler of the event, the Government collected during the year only 52 cents fop every dollar which it spent. An individual in New Zealand who conducted his business on the principle adopted by the Administration at Washington would speedily become bankrupt and would expose himself to the risk of being prosecuted for contracting debts

which he had no reasonable expectation of discharging. The United States Government, however, adds the enormous deficit for the past year to the still more enormous deficit of the preceding year and raises its accumulated public debt to a figure that is nearly twice as much as it was only five years ago. Great though the financial resiliency of the United States may be, it is not surprising that important interests in the country are claiming that there should be a definite and drastic reduction of Government expenditure. Nor is this claim likely to lose its force in face of the determination of the Government to introduce a programme of taxation of incomes and inheritances on a sharply graduated .scale. The maintenance of a close supervision of Government expenditure is highly essential in circumstances of economic difficulty.