FRUITS OF PAST POLICY.
And, if only these great expenditures for Labour Ministries, doles, and social services generally were productive of greater effort and output on the part of the community, of greater activity and prosperity in industry, of greater social harmony and of general happiness, there might be much to be said in favour of a policy of continuing the outlays, however inequitable the distribution of taxation may be.
Instead, however, we find not over one or two but over a series of years that output per man decreases, that our adverse trade balance becomes more serious every year, that local authorities vie with governments in extravagant and unprodUctiYe outlays, that other countries with less extravagant expenditure are capturing our export trade, that these " sound outlays " have been powerless to check labour disputes, that taxation is maintained at a level afflicting our industrial activities, that industry and thrift are discouraged, and idleness and apathy are encouraged by the excessive responsibility assumed by the State to maintain standards of life which may or may not be justified by the real economic _position of the nation.
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