The Economy Bill On Friday, September 11th, the Prime Minister
moved the Economy Bill, details of which had been circulated. Again there was a great deal of self-justification by the Opposition (Qui s'excuse, s'accuse!), and Mr. Thomas attacked them with vigour. The Bill established that the economies may for one month be made by Orders in Council. Where haste is of the essence of the business, this may be the only means to adopt, but we are glad that Lord Winterton put in a word of warning against the practice which might encourage bureaucratic government to even worse excesses than we have suffered hitherto. We have written about some of the economies in a leading article and need only record them barely in this column. The reductions of salaries of Ministers, Members of Parlia- ment, Judges, Civil Servants and members of the Defence Services are reckoned at 4k millions. Five millions are to be saved on the Defence Services apart from pay. On education there will be a saving of over ten million pounds, a necessity that everyone will regret. On Health Services Eli millions, and on the Road Fund nearly £8 millions are to be saved. Lastly, most bitterly needed for some reasons and most bitterly regretted for others, the reduc- tion of expenditure on Unemployment Insurance is set down at £25,800,000. The increase of contributions demanded for the same Fund is reckoned at £10,000,000. The whole saving amounts to £70,000,000.
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