THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1910. BUDGETS AND BUDGETS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10070, 18 August 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1910. BUDGETS AND BUDGETS.

Singularly enough, New Zealand is not the only part of the British Empire in which there is a tendency to indulge in reckless and extravagent finance. Even the Mother Country, under Lloyd-Georgism, is developing the disposition of the spendthrift. Referring to the British Budget, the London "Times" says it ought to receive the most searching scrutiny and strenuous opposition from Unionists. Its most outstanding feature is the combination of enormous arJ incx-easing expenditure wian n.ry reliance on mere hopes and chances, which is more alarmxng 1 b' : n the expenditure. Mr Lloyd George is always reminding us of some character in Dickens. Now it is Mr Micawber, whoso torching and fixed relief that "something would turn up" is magnificently multiplied by the Chancellor of the E.to'iofjrier. Ho is quito sure that everything u ;]» turn up—millions here and millions there, without the slightest chance of failure. He will not even admit that his calculations have any element of speculation at all; they are certainties. He is evidently, unlike Mr Micawber, demoralised by tlie gums he has handled on paper m ;:is official capacity. And that sort of thing is catching. He has demobilised his party, and will demoralise the House of Commons if it is,, not careful. Financial recklessness growscrescit indulgens sibi. A sort of fury seizes on the speivbhrift, who began in a timid way, and at last be flings money away in evoiy direction without pausing to think at all. Mr Lloyd George seems falling into an analogous state. He is ratter excited than sobered by the magnitude of his operations. Before the previous Budget he was

looking round anxiously for lienroosts to rob iu order to pay liis way ; now he is so pleased with his haul that he regards it as the bag of Fortunatus in which he has duly to dip his hand to draw out as much as he pleases. It is a dangerous mood, which needs checking, and that duty must be performed by the Opposition.