EXPENDITURE PER CAPITA.
Readers of this column will, I doubt not, have .seen that reply and will remember that the rate of expenditure per head of the population now works out at £18 3s. 61d., compared with I:4 6s. 2,1d. in 1913. In other words, we pay four times as much per head in taxation as we did before the War. Moreover, although I know what I have said on previous occasions has been challenged in some quarters, I would again suggest that it might be interesting to have fuller information as to whether We gain corresponding advantages from the fact that the expenses under the head of Health Ministry have risen during the period covered by these figures fram 2s. 31d. to 9s. lid., and Education from 8s. 61d. to 11 Is. 11d., while the cost of Unemployment Insurance has risen from Md. to 7s. 21d. It may be doubted very much whether there does not lurk in the last of these items a stimulus to .unemployment rather than a provision for the needs of those really unable to find work. For it must not beforgotten that a good deal of our unemployment to-day is connected with the high wages of those actually employed. In some cases these high wages mean that fewer people are employed, while in other instances it means that actual industries have had to cut down their activities because of the high costs of production involved.
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