THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3250, 28 June 1916, Page 59

THE WEEK.

! I wonder how many of the women of I this country have read the Financial ; Statement for tin's year, brought clown in Parliament some 10 days ago? Quite a 1 small minority, I am afraid, for the ' average woman is inclined to ignore matters of high finance on the ground that they are (a) dull, and (b) nothing to do with her. Now I respectfully submit that she is wrong on both grounds. To the housekeeping woman, at least, takes a pride in making good use of her resources and in engineering the , family income to the best advantage, the I national Budget should never be a dull ' thing. It is only housekeeping on a grand ; scale, a scale "so enormous that 1 am : devoutly thankful that I don't have to do ; it myself, and am filled with respectful , admiration for the intellects that can. j However, there are some people who find facts and figures always "dull," whether on a small or a large scale, so I grant them that excuse; but I can catch them | out on the second ground—that it has . nothing to do with them. It has every thing to clo with them, for though the ; great majority of us have no hand in the j actual management of the national finance, j the results (if that management effect each one of us in countle-s ways. The sources of taxation, the question of internal and I external loans, the ways in which the public; money is spent —all these .things ! act and react through the whole comj munitv, affecting the prices and supplies

of the food we eat and the clothes wc wear, to that vre have every reason for following as c'o:ely as vre can this business of national finance, for the sake of our own rights, and, what is more important, lo find out our own duties in the matter. You may not have thought hitherto that your personal expenditure, _ outside of what you may pay directly in rates and taxes, was of any importance in the affairs of the nation. You may think that you have a perfect right to do what you like with your own money, and so you have, within certain limits, a legal right ; but there is an ethical side to the question. Has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself, "How does my action as a spender of money and user of wealth affect my neighbour?" ('"Wealth" is here used in the economic sense, meaning "goods and services.") Have you, for instance, considered whether your expenditure on luxuries, though you may lie able to afford it personally, can be afforded by the nation as a whole? I suppose that since the war began most of us have given some slight thought to such considerations; but it was in a book written before the war, though I only discovered it recently, called "Luxury and Waste of Life," by E. J. Urwich, that T found this whole question of our moral rospon sibilities in the way of expenditure, especially in relation to luxury, most clearly set forth. A great deal of what lie writes would have scorned somewhat surprising to most people a few years ago; but it is only what we are learning now every day, as the present struggle deepens in intensify. We have impressed upon us from every quarter, now. thailuxurious expenditure is wasteful and injurious; but though economists had been preaching that for a long time they were not listened to because of the vague idea people had that such expenditure was "good for trade." So it, is, for some trades; but those concerned don't stop to think whether the money and the labour thus used might not be turned, to bettei account. A single example will explain things. In Great Britain the manufacture and sale of drink absorb* "the labour of one-twelfth of all cur workers and con-

sumes an amount of corn equal to the total annual harvest of Scotland." You will understand that this expenditure on drink—which, even taking the most generous view of it, must be regarded chiefly as a luxury—means that somebody, somewhere, mutt go short of bread, which is a necessity. We admit that drink is a luxury, and that makes us turn to the consideration of what luxury really is. Well, it is a most difficult thing to define, and many economists have failed to accomplish the task satisfactorily. Mr Urwich modifies his first definition somewhat considerably, but the idea that one gathers from the various theories on the

subject is that luxurious expenditure is anything above what is needed for personal efficiency and reasonable comfort. But—and this is an important point—there is no very definite standard for these things, and every individual must bring the matter before his own conscience. What one man may consider necessary to keep himself in a state of personal efficiency, another may regard as sheer waste. Things like books, pictures, or music, which add greatly to the

happiness of our. may be as nothing to his neighbour. Yet we should not grudge the first man a reasonable amount of such happiness. If he, however, persists in amassing riches merely for the sake of making a collection of costly treasures which lie can neither use nor really enjoy, then we can easily see that his action is unreasonable, and therefore harmful to the whole community. To take a much humbler instance, the foolish mother who

gives her child unlimited pennies to spend on sweets is acting in much the same way. A certain amount of sugar is good for children, but continual sweet-eating is not only unnecessary, but harmful, and further means the using up. in however

small degree, of a commodity which is needed by the whole world. That is the point we have all to get hold of: Dees our expenditure on luxuries, by using up a certain amount of goods and services, rob someone else of necessities? At a time like this, when as much of the nation's wealth and energy as is possible is needed for the one great object, the question is more vital than ever, and we may have to modify our definition of luxury, cutting out a good deal of the "reasonable comfort." and concentrating chiefly on the idea of "'personal efficiency," if we are to help the cause for which so many of our men have fought and died. ELIZABETH.