TOPICS OF THE DAY
HOW. TO FIGHT SOCIALISM
II.—THE BUDGET AND THE POST OFFICE AWISELY framed Budget is one of the best ways of fighting Socialism. A discontented population is the best seed-ground for Socialism, and the people are sure to be discontented and rightly so unless they are sure that money is not unnecessarily drawn from their pockets, and that the very best value is obtained for. every penny that is taken and spent by the State. If, then, we are determined to 'fight Socialism in earnest, and not merely to put up a stage combat, there is nothing on which we should spend more care than the Budget.
I have, of course, no notion as to how Mr. Winston Churchill means to frame his Budget, but that ignorance should not forbid me or any other taxpayer to explore the ground and say what in our opinion should be his course of action and especially what he might do in the work of fighting Socialism by good public finance. Mr. Churchill would, of course, agree in the abstract that he must tax as little as he can and spend with as little waste as possible. It is in the application of these principles that the trouble comes. First of all I would ask him not to choose the present time to stretch the taxpayer on the Treasury rack unduly in the matter of paying off the National Debt. It is right, indeed absolutely necessary, not to increase that debt directly or indirectly. It is also necessary to take wise means for its ultimate amortization, but in the name of all that is sane do not let us refreeze the stream of com- merce in an ill-considered and hasty attempt to repay creditors who do not ask for their money. Of course, our huge indebtedness is an evil, and, of course, we must be scrupulous to meet all our promises as to automatic sinking funds to the last farthing. What we must not do at the present moment is to raise money by taxation and invest it at, say, 5 per cent. or less in paying off debt, when we might as a nation be getting 15 or 20 per cent. on the money by leaving it to fructify in the pockets of the people. Pay off your debentures in periods of industrial rest and when you see no prospect of being able to expand your business. When you do see a chance of better trading put it into the business. To be specific, leave the debt alone except the debt to America, in which annual repayments are a part of the contract, and concentrate on creating favourable con- ditions here for a genuine and lasting trade revival. Now, the most beneficial of these conditions is ex- panding credit for the purposes of production. This development is not best encouraged by maintaining high taxation and repaying debt, but by " raking " less taxes into the Treasury. In theory no doubt the money repaid to the fund-holder should go back into trade. In fact, it often does not ; and .in any case a terribly large amount of money is wasted in the processes of raising and 'repayment.
Take a specific case. It would be much better business to budget this year for a return to the old pre-War Post Office charges for letters, for postcards, for parcels and for all printed matter, than to pay • off another five or six millions of .debt in sterling at par, though the loans thus repaid were made us in depreciated paper money: Once more, Choose the line of best investment. I venture to say that if we go back to cheap postal rates the anticipated loss in revenue will almost at once be. made up directly by the extra use of postal facilities. In- directly, of course, there will be an immense gain to trading. All trading is exchange, and the Post Office properly used is a vast piece of machinery for creating, maintaining and facilitating exchanges of every kind.
This brings me to another Budget• point of prime importance. Let us not be afraid of fighting Socialism with Socialism, when there is a good opportunity to do so. The Post Office presents just this opportunity. For good or ill the Post Office is a great piece of State Socialism. No sane person proposes to do away with the Post Office. It is here to stay. Very well, then, let us use the Post Office for all we are worth in order to give us the very best possible service. Don't let us try to make it a petty source of revenue by niggling economies and timidities, but let us use it as a wholesome and legitimate trade tonic, or if you will stimulant. There is no need to spend tax money on it, but let us, as a wise speculation, put back into it what we now get out of it. The Post Office is a strong man not only disarmed, but with his legs hobbled and one hand tied behind his back. If I were Chancellor of the Exchequer I should invite my colleague at the Post Office to work out at once a scheme under which the Post Office should be "Time home trader's best friend." (See passim Post Office Ads Department, " Slogans " Section.) Think out what an active, far-seeing, speculative trader would do with the Post Office if he had it, and then let the Government follow that lead. The Post Office has a depot, a potential place of trade, in every village in the country and offices innumerable in all our towns. Besides that, a servant of the Post Office calls actually or potenti- ally every day, very often twice a day, and often three or even four times a day at every house in the land. Can anyone say that we make a full use, or even a 50 per cent. use, of this marvellous organization ? The Post Office ought to be the conunon carrier of the country for every sort of article. And it should not merely deliver. It should not let its agents make their return voyage as now, almost always empty. When the postman delivers a packet of seeds or special groceries at Summerlees Farm why should he not take back a half-dozen or so of parcel-post packets of butter, Devonshire cream, straw- berries or spring chickens ? The burden would be too great ? That is not an objection to frighten a trader. If there is so much business going as that he will not turn it away. He will send a motor-bicycle trailer, a light motor-van, or a lorry if need be, to carry the goods. He will not sit down and sob, "Good heavens, if things go on like this we shall be asked to carry grand pianos, Saratoga trunks and washing hampers and perambulators, with the babies inside. We must stop it at once, by a new set of regulations, or we shall be literally snowed under." But why not ? In Switzerland, unless I am greatly mistaken, you can put a gold stamp on a piano and send it by the post to any part of the Republic. But these are details. All I want to insist on is that if you have a vast carrying organization as you have, don't be afraid of using it. Let it be worked to its full capacity, and not sterilized by one-way trading or timid trading.
No doubt I shall be answered in an awed whisper, as regards both a greatly enlarged and greatly cheapened parcels post and a proper system of delivery against cash collection, that the carriers and the retail shops would never allow it. They would swear they were being ruined by unfair competition.
I am absolutely sure that nothing of the kind would happen. After the first six months they would be doing better not worse than before: YOU can shop by post at a little shop as well as at a big, and the little shop by means of good postal facilities can halve its carrying expenses. But let us assume that the fears of the small retailers are well grounded and that there would be no huge increase of the volume of business such as I have so confidently predicted. Even then the country could not afford to hamstring the Pbst Office. The argu- ment may be a good one for not having a Post Office at all and leaving the work to be done by private enterprise. It cannot be an argument for creating an expensive organization and then only allowing it to function with :10 per cent, of the power generated unused and running to waste.
If what I have said of the missed opportunities in the !hatter of carrying is true, it is even truer to say that the Post Office misses fire in its other capacities. It may have been bad policy to make it a banker, but since it is and must remain so, then in Heaven's name let it Work, not ea' canny as it does at present in half the func- tions of a bank. But would not this, we shall be asked, be interfering in the sphere of action belonging to the joint stock and private banks ? Surely we cannot mean such a revolutionary proposal as this ! But I dare not develop this line of argument any further. If I did I might incur the penalties of lese Majeste, and might be called upon to apologise in all the bank parlours of the City—after the manner in which in old days an errant bluejacket, sentenced "to be flogged through the Fleet," took his punishment. I see before my affrighted vision the posters of the evening newspaper with legends such as :—" Editor of the Spectator in a White Sheet" and descriptive articles telling of how he went his rounds of apology at the banks promising future amendment, and how also he received the admonitions of the bank chairmen and governors.
Again if the Post Office is to do insurance work and to grant annuities why should it not make its ability to do business in this way better known ? It ought to use its postmen to sell Annuities and small Bonds, and Si.ving Certificates, i.e., to peddle them as they are peddled in the United States. Why should not the country postman say as he 'hands in the letters, "These leaflets, 'Bare to Be a Capitalist,' or 'Why, How and When to Buy a P.O. Annuity,' are well worth reading. If you would like to do anything in that way I'll help you to fill up the papers. You'll benefit, I'm sure, and I'll get a small commission. So we'll both be pleased " ?
This leads to yet one more consideration. The President of the Board of Trade rightly tells us all to advertise more and so create the demand which in turn creates wealth. We agree most heartily—how could we do otherwise ?—but we will also retort, "Physician, heal thyself." Why does not the Govern- ment, and especially the Post Office, advertise day and night and so get business ? The Post Office should use its offices and its postmen and its vans every time and all the time—mostly to press its own and the Govern- ment's wares and services, but on occasion also to give display to private advertisers on reasonable terms.
So much for the Post Office. But, it will be said, "This will not fight Socialism but encourage it." It will not. It will only show that in certain ways Socialism, like poisons in medicine, can be usefully employed. Arsenic is a good drug in small, well-regulated doses, but a deadly poison when used in bulk and constantly. We do not, however, argue that because we can use a few drops beneficially we ought to take arsenic by the twit. blerful.
.1. Sr. Lou STRACHEY.
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