WAR AND WASTE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 147, 18 February 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAR AND WASTE.

STARTLING FIGURES. The "Three R's" of war, so to speak, are the "'Three M's" of Napoleon—men, money, and materials. Of these the greatest is money. Long ago Mr. Lloyd George explained that it was the "silver bullet" which would defeat Germany in the end. It is a singular commentary on our methods of prosecuting the war that while so much attention is directed to the equipment of tlie men and the materials we have no attempt at the mobilisation of money. The magazines which contain the "silver bullet" are left open unguarded—every one is free to rifle the stocks. As a consequence there is universal in-

discriminate firing of these precious bullets. While the stocks are being depleted by £5,000,000 worth per day, is it not wise that a guard should be placed over the magazines? PRINCIPAL AND INTEREST. Our total expenditure for 1915-16 is calculated at £1,850,000,000. Deducting our national revenue, we shall lie confronted with a loss of £1,500,000,000. That is more than double what the Napoleonic wars in 20 years cost our grandfathers. The public, nevertheless, remains unmoved, insensible. The fact is that such magnitudinal figures have no power to impress—they are incomprehensible. They might as well be five thousand millions. The public realises only when it comes to the hard-hitting facts of taxation. Then they waken up, and blame the politicians. A simple way to understand the stupendous burdens, which are daily accumulating at incredible pace, is to convert the national deficit into the permanent incubus of interest which we shall have to provide in taxes. Our ioss this year will mean a permanent burden of £70,000.000 yearly. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, by his recent additions, succeeded in finding a new £100,000,000 of revenue. Of this, £70,000,0()0 is, however, as we see, due for interest. Another year's duration of the war at compound interest will add another £75,000,000 of interest to our yearly bills. It comes to this, then, that a two years' war will compel Mr. M'Kenna to squeeze a further £40,000.000 out of us by taxation, and even at that, with our Budget up to £340,000,000, we shall not have paid anything towards the cost of the war. We shall merely be keeping the wolf of "interest" from the door. We shall have still £3,500,000,000 of new debt to pay off. ARTIFICIAL PROSPERITY. There never was a period in our financial history so paradoxical to the public; and it is this our politicians fail to grasp. To the mass of people the evidences are all against distress, or the need of economy. All around them speaks of a land flowing with milk and honey. Unemployment has almost entirely disappeared; pauperism has decreased to a fraction of what it was; wages are bigger than ever; money is plentiful. The mass never reflects that this is artificial prosperity; that it bears the same relation to healthy economics as the holiday-maker who enjoys a "good time"—for a fortnight by consuming his savings Warships, guns, munitions of war bake no bread; nothing conies back from them. They are all blown off in smoke; and smoke won't feed us. If the workers would look at matters in that way, they would understand the falsity of th's prosperity. Everyman and woman engaged on warlike materials is not really earning wages; lie or she is only borrowing money. Because it comes in wages in response for the sweat of the brow the workers lose sight of the moneylender : but lie is there nevertheless and will, w.tli tlie keenness of Shylock, demand Ins pound of flesh. Every penny earned by workers to-day on munitions will have to be repaid with compound interest. down into the third and fourth generation of our children. There is no escape. We are simply living off money lenders in these days. "EASY COME, EASY GO." But men in the mass have generally shown themselves to be inconsiderate and reckness where money is plentiful. There is alwavs the few who see through the falsity or durableness of prosperity and save. One recalls the great days of prosperity over forty years ago among the miners, when the same disregard for money as is being shown to-day was exhibited. Every luxury was indulged in—gold watches, p : anos—evervthing fine but useless. The story has passed into tradition of the miner who drove to the pit in a cab and ordered cabby to "gie the puir devil a bob for haudin' the horses heid" —the puir devil being tlie p towner. Good statesmanship consists in guiding the people wisely through a crisis such as the present. There never was a period when such statesmanship was so required. That there is gross reckless waste of money is admitted, and Mr. Bonar Law confessed that war

materials were to-day costing the nation four times what they did in prewar days; whilst among the workers, who are earning big money, there is the old prodigality which evinced itself in the halycon days of miners wages. Piano dealers, jewellers, furriers, are abnormally busy. The political economv of the multitude, unfortunately, is "not that of Adam Smith, but of' the cookery book—"fou and fetch mail - ." Mr. Bonar Law's confession surely demands inquiry by the Government into the excessive cost of war materials. It is a fact, patent to many, that colossal fortunes are being .accumulated by contractors for warlike materials. " The Government resigns itself philosophically to the satisfaction that a share of these swollen profits will return to the Exchequer. But how much in this process of filtration may be lost? Many new buildings are in course of erection for the Munitions Department. They are contracted for on the principle of "Time and Lime," the contractors securing a surplus percentage of the outlays to represent their profits. This system leads to indiscriminate license. The employers are indifferent. The higher their expenditure the greater their profits. Boys are earning wages at this contract work that would have staggered their fathers in pre-war days. WOMEN EARNING los. A DAY. Some of the petty labour disputes which have come before our courts have been instructive in their revelations on this head. In Birmingham factories females are earning £3 weekly; boys at Elswick-on-Tyne ar& clearing £6 a week. A boilermaker at a Paisley court confessed that lie averaged between £l2 and £l3 a week. Among families where number of sons iiappen to be engaged on Government work the earnings of a Cabinet Minister are equalled. Cases have come to light of weekly totals of £3O and £."■ Unskilled female labour in munition factories is earning more than trades union journeymen in pre-war days. Fifteen shillings a day may he earned by a capable worker. A number of these female workers receive Government allowances over and above. A few, again, are even better blessed with a share of their husband's salary provided by privatfc firms or corporations. The war has blessed them with unprecedented superfluities of money. Unskilled male labourers, promoted to a machine, too, can earn much more than the recognised wages of a journeyman. Everywhere there is waste in emoluments. The "woodman" in London who made hundreds of thousands on commission is recalled. Even the clergy are not removed from tho atmosphere of the "big wage." The case is known of a cleric whoso intermittent services as chaplain, ranking as an officer, entitle him to 365. 6d. a day, and his church salary of £.500 a year remains intact. Nobody objects to reasonable remuneration, but in a crisis of the sort we are experiencing there is no room for extravagance. ROYALTIES ON NAVY COAL. This question of economy may be pursued into regions where it is seldom considered, 'lake mining royalties. Between warships and auxiliaries the Navy consists of some 3000 vessels. The discharge of the multifarious duties assigned to them costs the country much good money in royalties for coal. Vessels such as the Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, Mauretania, the Aquitania, when at full speed, will consume 1000 tons a day. The coal bill of the Mauretania on full running costs £B4 per day for mining royalties alone. The daily wage bill of, the 333 men engaged in the stokehold amounts to only £53, leaving a balance of £3l against the cost of the mere privilege to obta:n the fuel, as against the cost of its use on the steamer. Over a fleet numbering 3000 war vessels and auxiliaries an average daily consumption of 100 tons may be postulated. That would work at £20,000 a day or £7,000,000 per annum. The Navy is credited with protecting the country; strange that a few mortals should possess the right in war times to tax the Navy for so protecting the country! The more work, too, the Navy has to discharge in defending us the more goes into the pockets of the "royalists." It seems the very antithesis of the spirit of economy or patriotism. PARLIAMENT AND PENSIONERS. Parliament and its adjuncts cost the country about £480,000 a year. Then there are multitudes of hereditary pen. sioners drawing princely allowances for Wood relationships with heroes of the past. Another source of leakage comes from the retinue of political paras.tes holding sinecure jobs to which arc attached secured and liberal emoluments. On his retiral from tho Cabinet Mr. Churchill dubbed his own appointment to the Duchy of Lancaster as "wellpad inactivity." Many of li s colleagues hold'ng similar appointments innv reckon the words only as evidence of Mr. Churchill's fondness for "terminological inexactitudes. ' The case is known of an official who retired w th a pension of £BOO per annum in one department of the State, was appointed to another, and continued to draw salary for the one and pension for the other! In these days of excessive financial embarrassment the action of Mr. Churchill in throwing up his post of "well-paid inactivity" might be followed elsewhere with similar relief to conscientious scruples and the countrv's embarrassment. 'it is perhaps the saddest commentary on these anomalies that while such things exist the bravest and best of the nation are shedding their blood for is. a day. All excessive emoluments," all waste, becomes a national crime when compared to the sacrificial conduct of the soldiers in the field. How many at home could continue to hold official positions, retain their property intact, if the man m the trench, remunerated with a shilling a day, d >1 not offer Irs life as the ransom? Posterity is bound to comment drastically on these incompatibilities. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL WASTE. Those superfluities of cash which are steadily flowing out to great masses of the people are not being saved as they ought—this is another phase of the question that will force the hands of the Government one of these days. Our •domestic and social expenditure is reckless. Notwithstanding the drast c restrictions wlrch have been placed on the consumption of liquor, it is computed that tlie drink bill for the nation during the first half of 191-5 exceeds

that for the corresponding period of 1914 by something like £8.000,000. A reviewer of our finances has estimated that the average amount expended every week in Great Britain on entertainments is £1,00(3,000. A London music-hall magnate calculates that the new craze for " revues" is abstracting £55,000 weekly from the pockets ot the Cockney. Picture houses betray a like wave of prosperity. Everywhere there is libertinism in expenditure. The public fails essentially to gra.sp the significance of waste in these critical days. They imagine that agitation for economy to be a revival of Mother Grundy's crusade, a desire merely to puritanise them by curtailing their pleasures. This is the crassest of errors. THRIFT A NECESSITY. The highest considerations for the nation's safety demand imperatively the practice of rigid economy in everything, hut especially in luxuries and imported goods. All that is imported from abroad has to be paid for in gold. In normal times we pay for them by exports in machinery, textiles, etc. Today our production of these reciprocal barterings in commerce is seriously diminished. The balance must be made good by "drans of gold. Then there are enormous purchases of war materials in America for ourselves and our Allies, which we have partially to finance. The hill for these enabled the Americans to force down the value of our sovereign. To render its equivalent in Yankee money we had to send more than 21s. for every £l. That in turn produced an American war loan for winch we have had to pay a higher I rate of interest than at homo. We are losing every way you look at it: and if we increase these importations of foreign goods bv over-indulgence at homo then we are-adding all the more to our embarrassments. In the highest interests of national stability it is essential that the utmost limit be placed on unocessary purchases of imported goods. It must bo our aim to arrest the efflux of gold. No less so must we save every penny possible, so as to provide the Government with money to conduct the war to a satisfactory terminaton. GOVERNMENT ACTION DEMANDED. On most people it is unfortunately the case that appeals for the practice of economy fall on deaf ears. The pas s'ion for spending is as inherent in man as those other passions which tend to destroy him. Herbert Spencer traced , the idea of clothing back to the primi- ] tivo passion in uncivilised man to decorate and adorn himself. It is one of the primary instincts —the leve of finery. Hence, when money is plentiful the multitude proceed to satisfy this primitive instinct, which overrules all intangible appeals to their reason. There is always, of course, a not inconsiderable section, "the wise virgins," who resist this tendency. Even when wrongs or scandals abound in the conduct of war the inertia of the people is incredible. One of America's greatest men commented sadly on this feature after the American war, in which great corruption was disclosed — " We cannot stir the people to rise up and drive the thieves out of office." Our Government will dsregard the teachings of philosophy and history if it persists in its occasional homilies on economy, while confessing that the sit. nation of the country is "critical" or "serious." Action is required if we are to prevent the ruthless and indiscriminate sacking of the stores of "silver builets" wlrch characterises these days.—Glasgow Weekly Herald.