STATE AND SOCIETY.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3169, 21 August 1917, Page 7

STATE AND SOCIETY.

BRITAIN AFTER THE WAR.

FORECAST OP THE FUTURE

At the annual meeting of the New Zealand Society of Accountants last evening, the chairman, llr. J. S. Barton, in referring to tho future, said: "hi till departments of our lives, and practically for everyone of us, any statement or plau for the future must bo preceded aud qualified by tho words, 'after tho war.' 1 am somewhat afraid that we havo now reached the stage at which wo are apt to allow catch'phrases and platitudes to do servico for serious thinking about our place and duties in the strange new world that is coming to us after tlie war. It is perhaps easy U> understand this, oven to excuse it to some extent, but it ia the place of men to call themselves mentally to attention and to discipline their thoughts from limo to limo to serious and coherent consideration. It is easy ■ to say that, after the war we shall have to faco n&w conditions; one can always rely on a ready r.cquiescenco if he rolls out a grandiloquent phrase about tho 'remoulding of the economic basis ■ and superstructure of the- Dominion,' and 'the economic war that is to follow the present war. It is, however, possible fov us to proceed to details and to endeavour to indicate exactly what we think is coming and at what points we can see a path of duty opens. It is on occasions like the present that wo as accountants should endeavour to modify our "Ideas and concentrate on ; one or two practical and well-defined suggestions rather than indicate a-mere mental acquiescence in a nebulous, wave of commercial thought. May I offer two or three suggestions for the purpose of stimulating thought? "In the first place, >e may reasonably expect an increase in the area of State and municipal enterpriso, and a corresponding decrease in that of private enterprise. The State has reached what may be called 'the spring tide of communal effort. It has conscripted largo numbers of men, withdrawn from their ordinary occupations, curtailed their personal liberty of action and movement, housed, clothed, and fed them, and transported thorn to the battlefield, where their individual lives are pawns at the disposal of the, State's agents 'for preserving- our national life and liberty. It has interfered in a lesser degreo with the usual rights and activities of tho remainder of our population; has appropriated, commanded, and prohibited in numerous directions in which prior to tho war it had .not .ventured. After the war this tide must of necessity ebb; but it willnever .'recede to the old level. The national life which'has-been, preserved by communal effort will to an increasing degree be maintained, directed and served by State-directed efforts. Now this war or may not be a good thing. If the-war has demonstrated again that the greatest good in tho matter of the deepest concerns and most vital interests of our nationhood? can be preserved only by action by arid in the name of tho State, it has also emphasised again the familiar fact that the sanction and authority, of the State behind an. effort offers no immunity against the evil effects of waste, incapacity, and misdirected energy. Most people will admit this in- theory, but they do not Tealise how inexorablo is the reckoning that follows those evils. It is well known that even a careful .man is apt to be more prodigal in his use of a thing which is supplied to him in unlimited quantities than in the uso of the same thing supplied in smaller quantities that reveal the nature, presence and effect of waste. It is here that accountants should, find an opening for public service. ' The accumulated loss of a year or a few years ia often traced by the accountant to the neglect of simple economies and the persistence of apparently trivial errors. He lenows that there are certain vital principles of accountancy that lie at the cross-roads marked 'Presont ndvnntage' nnd 'Ultimate safoty.' He Knows that ordinary human nature has a'fatal tendency to .rush for the road marked 'Present .advantage.' He recognises municipal tramway affairs, for instance, it is precisely the same characteristic that makes citizens or classes of them intensely interested in cheaper fares,' relief of rates or higherwages, but correspondingly tipathetiG towards suggestions for safe financing or correct accounting." Mr. Barton referred to the increased taxation, which must be heavy and in new forms. It would no longer be an inappreciable dole from mnuy; it would result in a co-operative financial effort. It would also alter the relative capitalisation of business. The State would get : further from mero taxation and get nearer business co-operation. Then increased attention wculd bo paid to national organisation of trade and cooperation between parfs of the Empire. Hβ thought it would be safe to say that our national methods must conform more to Germany's pre-war commercial thoroughness than our own haphazard effort. This would call for the services of both commercial and public accountants with a knowledgo of the theory of trade and commerce, or 'business organisation of costing, of producing and marketing' goods. . !

KHETJMO rapidly relievos I/umbago, Kheumatism, Gout, Sciatica. Try it now—it seldom fails to cure.—Advt.