To subsidise or not...
To subsidise, or not to subsidise — that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of the unemployed, Letting the figures rise to salve the nation's weal, Or give assistance from the public purse, And by assisting, stay them?
To rise, to work, No more — and by that rise which rents the public polls. And renders hideous the nights in Parliament, To say we end the hopes of all of those Who put their faith in us? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be feared. To stay; to pay; To pay, perchance go broke. Aye, there's the rub, For if we give out subsidies, what calls may come Upon our purse to fill the gaping holes,
When we have shuffled off our present ills
Must give us pause. For who would bear The insolence of office, and the jibes. When he himself might his salvation make With a bare subsidy? But that the dread Of what the voters of the body politic Will think when all that we have said Is buried deep in sheer oblivion To subsidise or not to subsidise, that is the question? Basil Charles
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