Part 9 (1/2)
At no moment in recent years was it more desirable to urge a demand for retrenchment in the national expenditure, and probably at no moment could such a demand be urged with more chance of good result. For the recent revelations made upon the highest authority as to the wastefulness which characterizes our Government departments have aroused in the public mind not merely indignation at the spendthrifts who rule us but determination to put an end to much of their extravagance.
The only way in which taxation can be reduced is to lessen the need for taxes, and that can be done in no other fas.h.i.+on than by reducing the expenditure. Ministry after Ministry has entered Downing Street with the announced determination to exercise retrenchment, and Ministry after Ministry has left that haven for office-seekers with the expenditure higher than ever. The stock excuse for this state of things is, that as the national needs increase, the national expenditure must increase with them; but, allowing that this will justify a rise upon certain items, the question which will have to be pressed home to every Minister and would-be Minister, to every member of Parliament and would-be member, is this--”Is the money that is disposed of spent in economical fas.h.i.+on and to the best advantage?” And he will have to be a very thick-skinned specimen of officialdom who will venture to reply ”Yes” to the question.
In the estimates for the navy, the army, and the Civil Service, there is abundant room for the pruning knife, while to the principle which underlies the granting of many of the pensions there ought to be applied the axe. Of course, as long as we possess an empire which exceeds any the world has ever seen for the vastness of its extent and its resources, so long must an army and navy be maintained; and even if, by a reverse of fortune, every one of our colonies were cut off from us, an army and navy would still be needed for our own protection. They are as necessary to a nation, situated like our own, as a fire-brigade to a town; and it would be folly, and worse, to starve them into inefficiency. What money is needed, therefore, to place the defences of the country--whether those defences be men, s.h.i.+ps, forts, or coaling stations--in such a state of efficiency as shall avoid the chance of national disaster should war burst upon us, ought to be definitely ascertained and cheerfully granted.
But is the money now voted for the army and navy expended to the best advantage, or is not a large portion of it wasted in useless and ornamental adjuncts? We have not yet reached the point attained by that Mexican force which is traditionally stated to have contained twenty-five thousand officers and twenty thousand men: but the number of superior officers of both services is altogether out of proportion to the size of the force. In order to stimulate what is called the ”flow of promotion,” officers are placed on the retired list at a ridiculously early age, and the country is deprived of, while having to pay for, the services of those who are in the prime of life, and still capable of doing their full duty, in order that room may be made for their juniors to climb into their places, those juniors themselves being soon supplanted, and the ”flow of promotion” going merrily on--at our expense. And the hollowness of the pretension that all this is for the country's good is shown by the fact that, while a determined effort was made by the Horse Guards to compulsorily retire Sir Edward Hamley, the finest tactician England possesses, the Duke of Cambridge is suffered to remain commander-in-chief long after the age at which any other officer would have been s.h.i.+fted. This is only one example of how all rules, salutary and otherwise, are put aside when courtiers.h.i.+p demands, for there is a distinct danger, to which the country should be awakened, of our services being royalty-ridden.
Royalty, it is true, has not yet invaded the Civil Service, though the scions of the reigning house are so rapidly increasing in number that the prizes even of this department are likely, at no distant date, to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the skilled and deserving; but this particular Government department has plenty to be purged of, notwithstanding. Put in the shortest fas.h.i.+on, the complaint the public have a right to bring against the Civil Service is that it is over-manned and over-paid. A large section of its members--and those located at the various offices in Whitehall afford a glaring instance--commence work too late, leave off too early, and even when on their stools have not enough to do. Their number should be lessened, and their hours increased. Ten to four, with an interval for lunch, is a working period so scandalous in its inadequacy that even the Salisbury Ministry has condemned it, and has in some fas.h.i.+on, but at the country's expense, been striving to make it longer. No private business could possibly pay if it adopted such a system; and what must be done is to treat the Government service upon the same lines as a flouris.h.i.+ng private concern. The old notion that a State should provide a maximum of pay for a minimum of work, and that a Government office should be a paradise for the idle and incompetent, must be swept away. It is nothing less than a scandal that taxes should be wrung in an ever-increasing amount from the toilers of the country to pay for work which, under efficient management, could be better done at a less price.
With this question of pay there is linked that of pensions. It is often urged that men join the public service at a less rate of pay than the same abilities could obtain in other walks of business life, not merely because of the security of tenure, but because they know there is a pension to follow the work. This is exceedingly to be doubted; and although it would be unjust to deprive of pensions those who have entered Government employment under present conditions, the question ought very seriously to be considered whether it would not be wise for the State to pay, as private firms do, for the services actually rendered, and for individual thrift to be allowed to provide for illness or old age. Or, if it be thought desirable to maintain the pension system, the Government servants should be called upon, like the police, to contribute out of their wages to a superannuation fund. The system of pensions, as at present in operation, is indefensible upon sound business principles, and taxpayers have something better to do with their money than continue to spend it for sentimental reasons.
As to hereditary pensions, there is no need to say much. Thanks to Mr.
Bradlaugh these are in a fair way to be disposed of; but it will still need that a keen watch be kept, to prevent the State being further robbed by any fanciful scheme of commutation. It may be taken as settled that no further pensions will be granted for more than one life; but pensions for a single life, as now arranged, often prove an intolerable burden upon the revenue. A favourite device of the Government offices is to ”reorganize” departments, with the result of placing a new set of officials upon the pay sheet and an old set upon the pension list. Many of the latter will be comparatively young men, capable of doing service in other departments; and, if they are not wanted in one, they ought to work for their pay in another. But that is not the way in which the State does its business. They are pensioned off with such astounding results as was seen in the case of one official, whose place was abolished in 1842, who was pensioned at the rate of nearly 2500 a year, and who lived until 1880; or of another, whose office was abolished in 1847, who was pensioned in 3100, and who, up to this date (for he is believed still to be living), has drawn over 120,000 from our pockets without having done a single day's work for the money. And not only is the ”reorganization” system a means of lightening the national pocket without good result, but the ”ill-health” device has the same effect.
Annuitants live long, as all insurance offices will tell you, and it is proved by the fact that there are pensioners still on the list who retired from the Government service between forty and fifty years ago because of ”ill-health.”
Here, then, are some of the fas.h.i.+ons in which the country is defrauded; they could be multiplied, but the samples should suffice to arouse the attention of all who bewail the continual increase of taxation. The State is evidently regarded by a large section of the population as a huge milch-cow, which shall provide an ever-flowing stream; and this view will continue to be held as long as our legislators are not forced by the const.i.tuencies to give due heed to economy. Nothing practical in that direction can be done until the House of Commons has a thorough control over the national expenditure. At present the control it exercises partakes so largely of the nature of a sham that it is not worth considering; its scrutiny must become active and persistent, and it should be directed to the pickings secured in high places as well as in low--to the receivers of heavy salaries as well as of light wages.
The tendency has too long been to exhibit economy in regard to the small people and to pa.s.s over the extravagances which feed the large, and that is a tendency which will have to be stopped.
No one desires to lessen the efficiency of the public service; but as no one would seriously dream of saying that that quality is at this moment its most distinguis.h.i.+ng feature, good rather than harm would be done by the exercise of sound economy. It is only by lopping off the extravagances which have grown up like weeds in our Government departments, and which are now choking much of their power for good, that the taxes can ever be reduced. And so it is the bounden duty of the Liberals to raise their old banner of Retrenchment once again.
XXVI.--IS FREE TRADE TO BE PERMANENT?
Before leaving the consideration of taxes, the question of Free Trade must be dealt with. A very few years ago it would have been thought as unnecessary to discuss the wisdom of continuing our system of Free Trade as of lengthening the existence of the House of Commons; but we are to-day threatened with the revival of a Protectionist agitation, and it is necessary to be argumentatively prepared for it.
It is impossible within my limits to say all that can be said in favour of Free Trade or all that ought to be said against Protection; but it should be the less necessary to do the former, because the proof that it is working evil to the country must rest with those who a.s.sert it, and that proof they do not afford.
The main contention of the Protectionists--Fair Traders some of them call themselves, but the old distinctive name is preferable--is that the free importation of corn has ruined agriculture, and of other goods has crippled manufactures. And, having a.s.sumed this to be correct, their remedy is to place such a duty upon all imported articles which compete with our own productions as to ”protect British industry.”
First for the complaint. Is it true that the system of free imports has ruined agriculture and crippled manufactures? There is no doubt that the farming interest has been very seriously hit by a series of inadequate harvests and the growth of foreign compet.i.tion; and there is as little doubt that, if such a duty were placed upon imported grain as would make its culture in England profitable under the present conditions, the farmers would thrive, even if the poorer among us starved. No one can deny that, if there is to be Protection at all, the agricultural interest demands it the most, but we will see directly whether such a tariff as would make profitable the growth of wheat is practicable. As to the crippling of manufactures, there is something to be said which is as true as it may be unpalatable. Without denying that the free importation of foreign goods, coupled with the heavy duties levied by other countries upon our exported articles, has seriously diminished the profits of certain of our manufacturers, and has thereby injured the persons by them employed, those who have watched the recent course of British trade are compelled to see that other causes have been at work to account for much of the depression.
Making haste to be rich has had more to do with that depression than the weight of foreign compet.i.tion. Manufacturers who scamp and merchants who swindle; folks who endow churches or build chapels to compromise with their conscience for robbing their customers and blasting the honour of the English name--these are the men who deserve to be pilloried when we talk of depression. We _do_ want fair trade in the sense of honest trade, for it is the burning desire for gain, the resolve to practise any device that leads to money-making, which is injuring the British manufacturing industry far more than the foreigner. The sick man who disliked a wash was at last, in desperation, recommended by his doctor to try soap; the manufacturers who size their cottons to the rotting point, and the merchants who have been accustomed to sell German cutlery with a Sheffield label, should be told, when they cry out upon depression, to try honesty. And when they whine, as they sometimes do, that it is the demand for cheap goods that makes such a supply, they must be reminded that the butcher who sells bad meat, or the baker who adulterates his bread, pleads the same excuse, but it does not save either from being branded as a cheat.
There is a further point which will account for the loss of British trade in foreign markets, and that is the lack of adaptability to new circ.u.mstances shown by English traders. And this is displayed all round. Our farmers ought to know by this time that they cannot compete by wheat-growing with the United States, Canada, or India; but they will not comprehend that they can compete with foreign countries in the matter of b.u.t.ter, eggs, cheese, fruit, and poultry. And the consequence is that we are paying many millions yearly to France, Holland, Belgium, and America for articles that our own farmers ought to supply; and that the largest cheesemongers in London find it cheaper, easier, and quicker to import all their b.u.t.ter from Normandy than to buy a single pound in England. It is the same with our manufacturers. An American firm had a large order to give for cutlery; they asked terms which the English manufacturer rejected because they were novel; and a German at once seized the chance, and kept the trade. In New Zealand there was wanted a light spade for agricultural purposes; the English manufacturer would not alter his pattern to suit his customers; and the whole order went to the United States. In China the people wish for a cotton cloth which will not vanish at the first shower of rain; Manchester is so accustomed to heavily size its goods that it cannot change; and the China trade in that commodity is going elsewhere. Before, then, we complain of foreign compet.i.tion--a complaint which is bitterly heard to-day as against England in France, Germany, Austria, and the United States--let us be certain that we are doing all we honestly can to cope with it.
Some there are who say that they are in favour of Free Trade in the abstract, but that they will not support it as long as it is not accepted by other nations. This is about as sensible as a decision to cheat in business as long as some of our neighbours cheat would be honest, and is exactly on a level with the old death-bed injunction of the miserly parent--”My son, make money--honestly if you can, but make money.” And when it is stated, as it sometimes is, that Free Trade was adopted by this country only on the understanding that it would be universally agreed to, it is a sufficient answer that Sir Robert Peel, in introducing his measure for the repeal of the Corn Laws, observed:--”I fairly avow to you that in making this great reduction upon the import of articles, the produce and manufacture of foreign countries, I have no guarantee to give you that other countries will immediately follow our example.”
When the Protectionists, call themselves by what name they will and use what arguments they may, ask us to change our present system, we first then deny their a.s.sumption that England is going to the dogs, and next we ask what they propose to put in its place. Upon a plan they find it impossible to agree. Some would tax corn lightly, others as heavily as would be required to make its growth certainly profitable to the farmer; some would fix a duty only upon manufactured articles, others upon everything which is imported that can be raised here; some would admit goods from our colonies at a lighter rate than from foreign countries, others would put them all on the same level. Out of this chaos of contradictions no definite plan has yet been evolved, and none is likely to be.
The corn question is the first difficulty, and will long remain so.
Wheat, in the autumn of 1887, was selling at 28s. a quarter; on the average it cannot be grown to pay at less than 45s.; yet it is only a 5s. duty which is being dangled before the farmer. But if he is to lose 12s. a quarter he will be little farther removed from ruin than if he loses 17s.; he will as much as ever resemble the traditional refreshment contractor who lost a little upon every customer, but thought to make his profit by the number he served; and the agricultural interest in its wildest dreams cannot imagine that Englishmen are likely to impose a duty raising the price of wheat 60 per cent. A rise of 10 per cent. in the price of bread means a rise of 1 per cent. in the death-rate, and if a duty of 17s. were imposed, that rise would be 6 per cent. What would this mean? That where 100 persons die now, 106 would die then, and the added number would perish from that most awful of all forms of death--death from lack of food. And those extra six would not be drawn from the well-to-do, from the trading cla.s.ses, or from the ranks of skilled labour, but from those who even now are struggling their hardest for bread, and to whom the rise in price of a loaf from threepence to fourpence three-farthings would mean starvation. For let it never be forgotten that it is upon the poorest that a corn-tax would fall most heavily. The peer eats no more bread--probably he eats less--than the peasant; even when all his family and servants are reckoned, the quant.i.ty of bread consumed is comparatively little more than in an artisan's household; but while the peasant and the artisan would be made to feel with every mouthful that they were being starved in order that others might thrive, the few s.h.i.+llings a week that the peer would have to pay would be but a drop spilt from a full bucket, the loss of which no one could perceive.
Arising out of the proposal for the re-imposition of a corn-tax is a consideration which bears upon the idea of levying a duty upon other imports. India is rapidly becoming more and more a corn-growing country; if it were decided to admit its wheat free, the British farmer would continue handicapped; if it were resolved to tax it, India would necessarily retaliate by protecting its own cotton industries: and what would Lancas.h.i.+re say to that?
The fact is that, when the proposal to protect industries all round is considered, the difficulties of securing a feasible plan are found to be insurmountable. The simplest way, of course, would be to place a duty upon everything that entered our ports, and to follow that American tariff which commenced with a tax upon acorns, and was so jealous of interference with native industries that it fixed a duty upon skeletons.