DAY BY DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14765, 3 October 1921, Page 4

DAY BY DAY

The actual cost oi me great coal sirine of the Mother Country Cost of will never be delithe nilely reckoned. ProCoal Strike, bably it is not measurable. In certain directions, however, exactitude is possible, as for example in figures which were rpiotcd recently by Sir Robert Home, Chancellor of Ihc Exchequer, in ttie House of Commons. The expenditure he. named was ten millions on the subsidy. >even millions on additional expenditure on Ihe Army, ami nearly two millions on Navy, Air Force, and civil emergency organisation. This must constitute, however, but, a fraction of the real financial losses which the taxpayer has to confront as a result of the strike- It lakes no account in the Mrs I place of the additional deficit on the railways directly and indirectly resulting from tin 1 coal stoppage. In April the expenditure of Ihe railways exceeded Ihe receipts by £5,858,460. and in .May the deficit was only slightly b'ss. For Ihe first two months of the financial year the aggregate claim on the Government, including the sum necessary to bring the revenue up to prewar level, represents a potential burden r>n the British taxpayer of over £18,000,000. And slill such loss inI curred hy Ihe Treasury is a fraction only of that incurred by the nation through the strike. Dr Macnamara has given the aggregate number of working days lost from April I to July 2 as about 70 millions so far as concerns the miners themselves. But Ihe reckoning must take count of tin 1 unemployment created by the slrike in other directions, the adverse effect of the slrike upon the trades and industries of the country generally. .Board nf Trade figures of experts exhibiting trade depression constitute another melancholy avenue of inquiry. Diminution nf trad'- must be reflected in diminution nf revenue. It is predicted thai In make up for the coal strike |,he taxpayer will have to pay at an Increased rate for reduced public 'services, perhaps I'm- some years lo ' conie.