LESSONS FROM THE CRLSIS.
There is, however, a lesson to be drawn from- the recent developments in Australia, which is so important and has so direct a bearing upon certain tendencies in this country that it would be folly to ignore them. Nations, like individuals, are apt to forget that honesty of purpose requires to be backed by the necessary prudence if purpose is to be consolidated into action. The individual who conducts his finances on the Micawber principle of easy optimism and extravagant expenditure may find that almost unawares he reaches a position when he is unable, however willing, to meet his obligations. Such an individual, on reflection, and if he is fair in judgment on himself, will have to acknowledge that the failure to respect the sanctity of the contract was really in evidence when extravagant expenditure was going on. He was willing, in other words, to risk his credit and the sanctity of the contract upon a continuance of prosperity. And as with the individual so with a nation ; Australia has received warnings again and again from within as well as from without to the effect that Socialistic demands in the matter of wages, hours of labour and costs of production were going beyond the power of the country to bear the strain, and that any cessation of prosperity, especially if it hindered the process of continued borrowing, was almost bound to bring about a catastrophe. Those who pro- tested, however, were told that their fears were groundless, that they were belittling the resources of Australia, and, indeed, were not acting in a manner worthy of Empire loyalty. Nevertheless, the warnings have been found to be justified, and when the- latest warning of all—and a friendly one—came from the financial expert who had been specially invited over to Australia to examine the position, the extremists in the Labour Party made it impossible for sound Finance Ministers to carry out the necessary plans of drastic economies in the National Expenditure which would have saved the situation, for, among other things, it would have made it easy for Australia to obtain the necessary sterling credits to tide it over the time of difficulty.
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