THE TRUE CULPRITS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR, Why does the public continually grumble at the large amount of National Expenditure P It can be divided under three heads :—(1) the service of the National Debt, (2) the Fighting Services, (3) £500 millions sterling Civil Service Esti- mates, which is, for the most part, expenditure on Social Reform (another name for political bribery). The interest on the National Debt cannot be reduced without defaulting, in which case no more money could be raised by voluntary loans from the public when the time again comes that the nation has to fight for its life, perhaps two generations hence. The Fighting Services have to be maintained. The League of Nations, even if it eventually becomes effective, could not enforce its decrees unless it could threaten wrong-doers with punishment for disobedience. Therefore, it is only in the Civil Service Estimates that a reduction can be made. No man in the House of Commons would dare to advocate the cutting down of the main causes for this £500 millions of expenditure,namely, the policy of Social Reform, Old Age Pensions, Housing, War Pensions, Education, Unemployment, Passenger Fare, and Bread Subsidy, and every other kind of dole, all of which have to be covered by taxation, of which we are now complaining.
As for grumbling about the salaries of officials of the Trans-. port Ministry, if the whole of them worked for nothing you would, perhaps, save two million.pounds per annum. What is that compared with the expenditure of £500,000,000? That is not where the so-called " Government extravagance " lies. The extravagance comes from the Democracy, or, in other words, from about eighteen millions of electors who sponge (by the conduit-pipe of taxation) upon the work of the two million direct tax payers. If people in this country, including Mr. Asquith, desire to reduce National Expenditure let them stop the clap- trap about the salaries of Government officials, and advocate on public platforms throughout the country that E250,000,000 should be cut out of the Social Reform (political bribery) pro- gramme. If a Member of Parliament were to advocate such a policy he would get scarcely a vote at the next election. And why ? Because the spongers (Democracy) benefit by excessive National Expenditure, and will only vote for the men who advocate the excessive National Expenditure. The eighteen million voters are those to whom the country should adjudge the blame for high National Expenditure, for it is they who force the expenditure upon their Members of Parliament, who, in turn, form the Government to give effect to the views of the spongers. Perhaps Mr. Asquith will remember that when he talks on the next occasion about " Grandiose Ministries." It is time that the falsehood involved in the statement of " Govern- ment extravagance " were nailed to the counter and the truth branded on the foreheads of the eighteen million voters who oompel the expenditure, and profit by it.—I am, Sir, &c., D. K. McBerlzii.
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