In this connexion, as the Manclteater Guardian points out, considerable
attention ought to be paid to the statement in the circular that the Government are prepared "to review any questions of policy that may be raised by auggested.reductians." Every Department is instructed to make a searching examina- tion of its current expenditure and to furnish provisional esti- mates for the year 1922-23. The circular points out that in 1922-23, even if no taxation is remitted, the ordinary revenue of the State is not likely to be more than £950,000,000. At the present rate of expenditure nothing would then be left over for the -redemption of debt. The only alternative to rationing is in fact fresh borrowing or increased taxation. We -are left wondering why this scheme, welcome though it is now as an instalment of that wide and severe economy which alone can save us from ruin, was not put into effect two years ago, and why what is now presented as a departmental affair should not have been the whole foundation and heart of the Budget.
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