We have dealt with the general Parliamentary position elsewhere, but
must repeat here that the essential feature of the situation is the fact that the Government are, in effect, proposing not only to place this year upon the taxpayer an additional permanent annual burden of some ten or twelve millions, but that they are, in their own words, laying the foundations of a system which must ultimately cost yet another twenty millions a year. The Westminster Gazette, that very able apologist of the Government, tells us that the increase in expenditure due to old-age pensions may be gradually provided by the automatic increase in the revenue. It points out that we spend now some thirty millions more than we did ten or twelve years ago, and that therefore we may very well count upon our gradual increase in wealth enabling us to meet the bills for old-age pensions as they become due. Thus the Westminster Gazette not only abandons all hope of reducing taxation, but suggests the device of the spendthrift all the world over,—mortgaging the future, and anticipating the prospective wealth which he hopes some day to possess, but which is in no sense in hand. It is finance of this kind which brings nations, as individuals, to utter ruin.
Previous page
