RESULTS OF FISCAL MALADMINISTRATION 6i 



weeks, from our greatest commercial and industrial 

 European rival, because they cannot find work in their 

 own country. Couple this fact with others of a like 

 nature — widespread distress, the congested state of 

 labour in all professions, trades and industries; the 

 existence of phenomenal pauperism and the necessity of 

 legalising it as a State institution ; the stupendous sums 

 spent on pauper relief each year; the cruel drain on the 

 virile energy of the nation by the constant and ever- 

 increasing stream of emigration — and the very natural 

 and common-sense conclusion is arrived at that the social 

 and economic condition of the people is as bad as it can 

 be: that our fiscal administration is fataUy wrong, and 

 that unless we alter and amend it, irrespective of the 

 feelings of this political party or that, we shall simply 

 bring about the disintegration of the Empire. 



Political parties and political economy enthusiasts Does Trade 

 will, no doubt, say that this method of reasoning is Mean 

 faulty and the conclusions wrong. The individual reply pro^s^^g^/t p 

 to this is obviously: "My social and economic position 

 has been rudely assailed ; my interests are at stake here ; 

 my pocket has suffered ; and in spite of what these gentle- 

 men tell me I am going to settle this matter at last in my 

 own way. I will take my own course in spite of the fact 

 that our import and export trade is apparently in a 

 flourishing condition, because I find that this one thing 

 alone does not, and cannot, constitute in itself all the 

 many factors that are essential to ultimate success and 

 prosperity. I find that the wonderful cry of the party in 

 power, that great trade expansion means national 

 PROSPERITY is as false and misleading and as fatal 



