NATIONAL PLANNED ACCOUNTING
Sta,—I read with particular interest the letter from Mr. A. C. Edwards in your issue of February 13th on this subject, as in 1933 I had some correspondence with the late Right Hon. Neville Chamberlain—then Chancellor of the Excheqtler—on the same matter, venturing to Point out to him that our National accounts are kept in an, archaic manner— airing back to, I believe, the days of Queen Anne—being kept on what is called the "single account or cash system "—a method dis- carded by all commercial concerns very many years ago—and for a number of years discarded by all local authorities.
Under this system, as Mr. Edwards rightly points out, there is no distinction between Capital and Revenue items—nor it is possible if any Department has underspent in the year to carry a balance for- ward to the following year. Unfortunately Mr. Chamberlain accepted the Civil Servants' contention that this system is the only practical one that could be adopted for our national accounts—a conclusion with which I ventured to disagree, and still profoundly disagree with.
A year or two later I wrote Mr. Chamberlain again suggesting that the money saved by the reduction of the estimates for the Army, Navy and Air Force should be charged against the Budget for each year while this unfortunate policy operated, so that the amount would be available for the Forces when the Nation once again regained its sanity and recognised that no Empire like ours could be guarded and retained without adequate defence forces. But again I as informed that this was from the official point of view impracticable. How different might the events of the last three years have been had this simple suggestion been acted uponl
From experience one knows how heartrending a task it is in this country to get the official mind to accept any innovation, or to alter its methods, as the more antiquated they are, the more tenaciously does it cling to them. At the same time may I express the hope that Mr. Edwards' letter may appeal to some of our more enlightened M.P.s and they will take action—the Select Committee on National Expenditure might, one would suggest, be a likely body to tackle the
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