SACRIFICES MUST NOT BE USELESS.
While awaiting the details of the new- Budget there are certain comments, however, upon the situation which, perhaps, can most usefully be made before rather than after Mr. Snowden's Budget, because, whatever the provisions of the Budget may be, they can make no difference with regard to the points which I would like to put forward in this article. And the first of these is that the nation has a right to expect that its sacrifices shall not be useless sacrifices. True patriotism demands that care shall be taken that past errors are not only corrected, but are prevented from recurring. It is an easy matter sometimes to subscribe towards certain relief funds, but it is a much harder, though a more important matter—and duty—to investigate the causes of distress, and if possible to remove them. At the present time there is a full measure of censure of those Socialists who not only declined to stand by the Prime Minister, but who are now conducting a hostile Opposition, the tactics of which include a professed disbelief of the seriousness of the crisis itself. It must not be forgotten, however, that it is not so long since the Prime Minister, or, for that matter, any of the politicians, gave credence to the warnings which had been uttered by bankers and Press alike for some years.
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