The Press. Thursday, June 10, 1920. The Rising Expenditure.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16857, 10 June 1920, Page 6

The Press. Thursday, June 10, 1920. The Rising Expenditure.

The large rise in the national expenditure is being widely commented upon in *!ie newspapers, a nd this is natural and desirable. The Opposition journals, however, are rather obviously concerned to attack tli,e Government for party reasons rather than to assist the cause of sound finance, and they place great reliance upon, the fact that "The Press, 1 ' the " Dominion," and other newspapers hostile to the Liberal Party, take an unfavourable view of the national balance-sheet "What they wish their public to understand is, one supposes,' that the situation must be appalling when newspapers favourable to the Reform Party criticise the Reform Government. Actually, of course, the Liberals are merely emphasising the fact that they always did, and still do, while the Reformers never did, and do not now, subordinate their opinions on public topics to the convenience of .any particular party. In the circumstances, the least they might do is to. acknowledge the fact, which we have amply demonstrated, that Sir Joseph "Ward was mainly responsible for the rise in the expenditure, and actually left behind him, as is pointed out in the last Budget, a programme of expenditure which was to. cause a deficit. This question of responsibility is important otherwise than as relating to parties, for it touches the general problem of Treasury supervision of tho expenditure, but with that we shall not deal just now. "We havo quoted the main items in the expenditure in earlier discussions of the subject, and we shali here point out some of the increases in oxpenditure ( concerning which an explanation is desirable. The cost of the Agricultural Department rose from £"240,4-04 in 1918-19 to £818,566 in 1019-20, and it is obvious that the larger total must contain some special payments outside the ordinary costs of the Department. What these payments are, and what they amount to, has not yet been stated. The increase in the cost of the Defence Department from £416,427 to £502,465 does not. appear to bo justified by the facts, and details are much to be desired. The cost of the Health Department has also risen (from £318,808 to £556,899) a good deal more than any known circumstances account for. The largest increase of all is £890,000, in the Railway Department's expenditure, but a considerable proportion of ~ this is of course due to the greatly higher price of coal and the more than normal purchase of stocks. Altogether, the Departmental expenditure increased by £2,937,714. "When allowance is made for the special payments set against the Department of Agriculture, this wi! probably come down to 2J millions. We have no doubt that the Government will be able to show that tho rise in the price of materials and the increases made in the salaries of public servants of all kinds account fully for this very large addition to the cost of administration. A full return should be asked for in the coming session, because it is necessary that the public should know exactly how much the cost of government has been increased by the higher pay of the public service. The country vrill be fortunate if the expenditure in the current vear is not more than 26 millions sterling. That would mean a rise of rather over 21 millions, and wo can hardly hope that the rise will be less than that, in view of the fact that the rise m 1919-20 was five millions. The revenue last year was 26 millions, and it is at present impossible to feel sure that it will rise much beyond that. Still less is it possible to expect that

the taxation imposed during tbe war will be reduced. Yet the rates of taxation should come back to normal as soon as possible. The situation is one that calls loudly for the cxcrcise of tho utmost economy, nnd yet the Government is faced on all sides with demands for greater oKpcnditure than ever. While the handling of this situation will severely test the capacity of the Government, it will also test the sincerity cf the Opposition and its professions of concern for the national welfare and the stability of the national finances.