Mr. Geoffrey Drage, in Monday's Times, calls attention to the
new return of expenditure on " public assistance," amounting to not lees than £172,813,293 for last year. To this must be added, for the current year, £08,000,000 for insurance, unemploy- ment donation, education, housing and old ago pensions, as well as £72,000,000 for war pensions. Deducting voluntary contributions, Mr_ Drage estimates that £286,000,000 is required in rates and taxes, as compared with £25,000,000 in 1891, for " public assistance " to individuals. Omitting the cost of education, £226,000,000 is being spent, and 20,000,000 people are benefiting by it. Mr. Drage does a service in putting these stupendous totals before the public. Few people realize the cost of our social legislation, or that, for example, London, which was spending £7,000,000 a year on education before the war, will in ten years' time be spending £19,000,000. Revolutionary disorders would, of course, destroy this vast system of " public assistance." Only a very prosperous and peaceful community can hope to bear the immense burden which Governments have light-heartedly piled on its back, without counting the coat.
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