In regard to the education scheme, we must apply the
two essential questions : (1) What will it cost ? (2) Where is the money to come from ? On the first question Mr. Pease gives little light except to say that it will be expensive. We can well believe him, and we should not be surprised if in the end it added another four or five millions a year to our national expenditure on education. As to the question, " Where is the money to come from ? " we can only say that in the end most of it is certain to come from the pockets of the poor. We have well-nigh exhausted the possibilities of direct taxation, and indirect taxation, if it is to bring in anything worth having, must always touch the poor man. If the Government really deem it necessary to make this further expenditure on education, they should have cut down or postponed those other items of civil expenditure which have swollen so terribly the national budget. Nations, no more than individuals, can spend simultaneously in every direction. Let it not be supposed, however, that we object to spending public money on education. It would have been far better to spend two millions a year extra on education than to spend it on a system of land valuation which brings in nothing but a minus quantity, and which, when completed, will prove as useless as the great Napoleonic land valuation in. France.
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