Mr. Samuel would not, we imagine, deny that this comforting
argument about houses can be applied to other possessions and services. For instance, the great expenditure nowadays on improving the public health, on education, on' insuring the worker against unemploy- ment and on safeguarding his old age against destitution and providing him with various amenities which used to be unknown—if all these things really improve the productive capacity of the nation they cannot be con- demned. On the assumption that this argument is true, we must then go a stage further and acknowledge that a large part of the expenditure on social services cannot possibly be retrenched. This situation must be faced fairly by those who demand vast economies but do not allow themselves to say that we ought to return to such a state of individualism as Gladstone and Bright approved.
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