ANTI-WASTE HUMBUG.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1921, Page 9

ANTI-WASTE HUMBUG.

POLITICAL CATCH-CRY

London, Feb. 23.

A gentleman who shot his erring wife, a few months ago, remarked, as he pulled the trigger, “There’s one to go on with.” We can imagine some such intimation in the mental background of Mr. Montagu (Secretary for India) when dealing with the so-called anti-waste campaigners at Cambridge on Saturday. These campaigners are notoriously persons who have hit upon what they consider to be an effective catch-cry in a purely personal opposition to the Government. They are led and engineered by the Northcliffe press. For with them opposition involves no question of political principle at all. It is all summed up and expressed in “I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,” and is not a bit more valuable or patriotic. “You could save money, and you could make yourself popular with the constituencies if you would reduce your annual estimates by refusing to pay your bills,” said Mr. Montagu. Precisely. And the raucousvoiced, or shrill penned crew who tarry on the anti-waste campaign here know it. Realising that everybody is against waste, they count upon the uninformed being easily led to eay: “Yes, of course, the blessed Government wastes our money; let us have a change.” People without knowledge those so caught, even without comprehension. “What does a ploughman know of finance?” contemptuously asked the late Sir Graham Berry (Australia) in reply to some badgering. AVe dare to think that ignorance of finance is not confined to ploughmen. So curiously-experienced a person as the awful Bottomley came a nasty cropper last week when trying to discuss the German indemnity question. Mr. Montagu says that he would like to see an anti-waste Government confronted with such questions as these: “What are the estimates for the current year? No less than they were under the discredited Coalition. Why haven’t you cut them down? You surely don’t mean to after your raging, tearing propaganda that .you have not succeeded in getting a few millions less spent on the army, that you have not been able to run your telephones on less than they cost, that you are still spending two and a half times more on this service or that than were spent before the war simply because prices have gone up? We don’t want excuses. Did you vote for those Estimates or didn’t you? We are not here to argue. Anyone who spends a penny whether you owe it or not is not a genuine anti-waste candidate.”