FUNDAMENTAL FACTS.
Last week I dealt in this column with the importance of national economy as a first step in the direction of recovery in our industrial prosperity. It is quite extra- ordinary how the general public seems to be constantly easily turned aside from this vital question. During the past week, for example, we have heard and read much in regard to the deficit in the forthcoming Budget and how it is to be met. As a consequence, the attention of the public is for the moment chiefly concentrated upon the means to 'be . employed -by Mr. Snowden fol meeting a possible deficit of about £50,000,000. It is, of course, only natural with such a prospect that the (Continued on page 528.)
Finance—Public and Private
(Continued front rare 526) taxpayer should be very much occupied with the question of whether he, in particular, is to be victimized by the new taxation, and if it should be found that as an individual he appears to escape, or if, for the sake of example, the whole situation is supposed to be " saved " by some general protective tariff, there will probably be a tendency at once to entirely overlook what is really the fundamental fact, namely, that owing to enlarged unproductive expenditure a sum of, say, 150,000,000, which would otherwise have been available for stimu- lating private industry, has been swept into the coffers of the State for purposes unlikely to stimulate the country's industries. In fact, we come back at every step to the supreme necessity for economy in the national expenditure.
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