Saving and Spending Indications that the tendency towards an excess
of economy is weakening multiply. The Minister of Health's instructions to local authorities in relation to the Ray Report, advocating not the abandonment of needed constructive works .but strict economy in actual administration, is one symptom. The course of the debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday, when the whole . question of unemployment was discussed on the second reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, was another. The debate in fact resolved itself into a discussion on wise spending, in which members as sober in their financial ideas as Major Hills and Mr. Harold Macmillan advocated income-tax reduction and the promotion of public works financed by loan. While there was clearly a time for rigid economy a year ago the situation to-day calls for more courageous and enter- prising measures. What was right at one juncture may be 'wrong at- another and it is possible to advocate wise spending now without for a moment calling in question the policy of economy approved then. •
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