Review of Revieics, 30/S/OS. 



Leading Articles. 



2S1 



est standards of former critics, Mr. Birrell has probably 

 no rival. , ^, 



I apprehend that he will be wasted at th« Education 

 Office, though if Education gains only half as much as 

 Letters must lose during his sojourn at Whitehall, the 

 country will have made a good bargain. 



Among other auLhors in the Liberal Party the 

 writer mentions Baron Fitzmaurice, of Leigh, Mr. 

 Winston Churchill, Mr. Haldane, and others. 



THE QUINTESSENCE OF BIERELIISM. 



In the February number of the Pall Mall Maga- 

 zine Mr. Herbert Vivian has an article on Mr. Birrell 

 in Literature and in Politics. Mr. Birrell, he 

 writes, has his prejudices, but his efforts to be vin- 

 dictive are painful failures. Thus he seems to be 

 verv severe on Dean Swift, but in the end he re- 

 marks, •• After all, it is a kindly place, this planet," 

 and here we have the quintessence of Birrellism. 



In reference to politics, Mr. Birrell says he will 

 never be a delegate to the House of Commons. All 

 that a constituency has a right to expect from its 

 member is that he shall be in general accord with 

 the views of the party which supported him. 



IS JOHN BULL OUTRUNNING THE CONSTABLE ? 



Yes, .says the - Quarterly Review.'' 



It is a significant fact that the strongest protest 

 yet published against the reckless expenditure of the 

 last twenty years in which Toryism has been in the 

 ascendant apix;ars in the pages of the staunch old 

 Tory- Quarterly Reviezi'. Its first article, entitled 

 " The Cost of' Government," is a damaging indict- 

 ment of the extravagance and slovenly, slipshod 

 finance of the Unionist Government. The reviewer 

 gets some relief by denouncing even more strongly 

 municipal expenditure, but the article as a whole is 

 well worth careful consideration. 



The reviewer begins by saying that : — 



THE LAOCOOX OF TO-DAY: (a) TAXES. 



The famous Vatican sculpture of Laocoon and his sons 

 being strangled bv huge serpents, while embodying an 

 ancient Greek myth, is an emblem of the modern British 

 taxpayer. 



There has been during the past five years an average 

 increase of £13.000.000 annually in our combined national 

 and local expenditure, compared with the average of the 

 preceding five -^ears. 



The aggregate outlav during the last ten years was 

 £1,440,855^128, against £9C2.209,158 in the previous ten years, 

 and £780,000.000 in the like period preceding. 



Within the last ten years the growth Has been 45.5 per 

 cent., the various spending departments showing an in- 

 crease as follows, comparing 1905 with 1895:— The army, 61.5 

 per cent.: the navv, 60.3; education, 60.2; other branches 

 of the O'vil Service, 26 8: collection of customs, 7.6; col- 

 lection of inh;nd revenue, 31.4; Post-ofBce, 52.7; and tele- 

 graphs, 73.9. , _ . „„„ 



(6) RATES. 



The broad facts as to local rates may be summarised as 

 follows:— Over all England and Wales— where the J»rcum- 

 Jtances and rules differ from those of Scotland and Ireland 

 -the average rate in the pound in 1875 was 38. 4d.: it^ is 

 now 5s. 7(1. The amount per head of the population is 308. 

 5d.. against 16s. 2d in 1875. , „„,«,, ^„ . ^n^r c 



The local exnenditure has risen from £63,783.000 in 1865-6 

 to £143.032,000 in 1905^. wh-ch is equivalent to a rise from 

 42g. ind. per head to 658. 7d. . jj j 



If the present expenditure for local purposes be anaed. 

 the amount exacted for taxes and rates approaches £7 per 



head per annum. 



The abnormal growth of local debts imperatively calls 

 for the inteivention of the Legislature. Dangerous facili- 

 ties for borrowing have been recklessly used. The amount 

 was a little under £4 per head of the population in 1875, 

 but it is now over £11. 



(c) OFUCIALS. 



The census of 1901 revealed a growth, in the decennium, 

 of 37.3 per cent, in the number of persons engaged in 

 government work, national and local, or more than three 

 times the increase of the population which was 12.17 per 

 cent, in the period. If we include the army, the navj-, the 

 Civil Service, ochool teachers, local officials, the police, 

 and pensionei-s of all grades, we find that, throughout the 

 country, six persons who work for their livelihood, and who 

 have never received a penny from the public purse, have to 

 support a seventh. 



DO WE GET OUR MOXEYS WORTH? 



The Quarterly asks : — 



Does the country receive a commensurate return for the 

 money? Is this enormous annual and increasing premium 

 an adequate protection for the Empire? 



And in answer to its own question declares that 

 nobody knows, owing to the slackening of the control 

 of the House of Commons over the national purse. 



A remedy was proposed in July. 1903, by the Committee' 

 on National Expenditure, on a suggestion by Mr. Gibson 

 Bowles, that an Estimates Committee should be annually 

 appointed to examine the four classes of money votes, 

 and to report prior to the supply stage of procedure. It 

 also recommended that an opportunity should be afforded 

 every year for discussing the valuable reports of the Com- 

 mittee on Public Accounts, which are at present merely 

 printed and left to fate or chance. Both these recommenda- 

 tions, though favourably received and constantly pressed, 

 remain merely recommendations. 



Recent reports of the Comptroller anH i'lditor-General 

 call attention to grave defects in the military system; but 

 the reports are seldom noticed in Parliament, and are 

 never discussed seriously. The same remark applies to the 

 reports made to the Houae of Commons by the Public 

 Accounts Committee. 



Lord Esher, Admiral Fisher, and Mr. G. S. Clarke 

 reported on the financial methods of the War 

 Office: — 



"They do not induce to economy in peace; they directly 

 promote waste in war; and they tend, at all times, to 

 combine the maximum of friction with the minimum of 

 efficiency." 



WHAT MTTST BE DONE? 



We must reform our wavs. curtail our expenditure, 

 abolish waste, introduce strict account-keeping, and 

 above all give control to those who pay : — 



The Holbnrn Borough Council issued a statement last 

 June that 28.3 per cent, of the rates are paid in respect 

 of premises owned by limited companies, for which no 

 names appear on the list of voters. 



The facts will hardly be brought home to the mass of 

 electors whose votes approve the present policv. at least, of 

 municipal bodies, until the compound householder is ex- 

 purged, and the rates levied, even at a mucli enhanced 

 cost of collection, directly on those who fix the amount. 



Somtthing must hf A'^\v\ and that right speedilv. 

 for— 



We have reached a critical period in our national career, 

 and are speiidinT on the machiney of government far more 

 than is warranted by the financial circumstances. 



Instead of living within our national income, and placing 

 .H. considerabl nortion of it in reserve, as in former years, 

 we are to a certain extent living on our national capital. 



We have now begun to amend, for we have tume<l 

 out the spendthrifts and place<l the partv of retrench- 

 ment in office, at whirh \\\e Quarterly Review ought 

 greatlv to rejoice. 



