The Roar of Retrenchment.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 7, 1 May 1909, Page 223

The Roar of Retrenchment.

It was an expression once very loud all over the land. Reviving to-day it sets thoughtful people cogitating a little apprehensively. There is a unanimity about the newspaper cry for economy which makes one suspect lest a mad political rush may not bring disaster to some important interest. Economy is the life of the army as the soldiers of the old school used to say. But saving money is not the sole duty of governments. Their duty is te carry on the King's service, and when the supply of money provided proves insufficient, from any reason, it is their duty not to lie down hopeless before the position but to promptly devise means for getting the money necessary to carry on the necessary work. For example: — if anything goes wrong with the education upkeep within the next six years, the roar of retrenchment will be drowned in another roar, of the kind which makes your average politician turn pale and pray to the heavens to cover up the traces he has left in the public records of voting. It is the same with a department that is not yet in full working order or at full strength. If the afforestation of the country is interfered with by the retrenchment policy now leading the political pack in full cry, some of •these hounds will get a taste of the lash which stings their kidney more than any other. Whether money is plentiful or whether it is scarce, there must be timber in this Dominion for all time; the people of this Dominion must be always on an educational level, technical as well as literary, with every people that sets store by enlightenment; the agricultural community must never want for the information and guidance which are vital in the race against the world. For these reasons we should like to hear at the present juncture something more about the efficiency of the service and something less about its retrenchment.

Up to June 1, 1908, £14,589,600 had been expended on work on the Panama Canal by the United States, exclusive of the purchase of the French undertaking, indemnity, &c. The amount expended in construction work and engineerig was £5,666,593; for plant, etc., £6,020,466; on municipal improvements, £1,129,269; and on sanitation, £1,324,128, the remaining £429,115 having been expended on civil administration — a total of £39,159,171. Mattresses made with paper shavings are in use in Germany for soldiers' beds.