The evidence as to the pay of the Civil Service
is equally startling. Before the War there were 283,000 Civil Servants, costing £29,500,000. In the present year there are 325,000, who cost over 167,000,000. In other words, the average annual cost of a Civil Servant in 1914 was £104 5s., in 1922 it is £206 3s. As the cost of living, according to the Board of Trade index figure, is now considerably less than double what it was in 1914 —and according to the experience of all thrifty housekeepers it is much lower in practice for a middle-class household than the index figure puts it—it is clear that the Civil Servant is financially better off to-day than he was before the War. In the special ease of the Board of Inland Revenue, the staff has been tripled and the cost of it has increased sixfold—from £784,633 in 1914 to £4,651,406 in the current year. Of course, the revenue has increased still more largely ; but we fail to see why income- tax at 55. should cost so much more than at is. 4d. to collect, and the new taxes can hardly account for the main increase. The fiat is that the Civil Service, with the powerful aid of its Whitley Council and the benevolent aid of the Government, has made a good thing for itself out of the War.
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