Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Thursday 30 November 1922, page 8


[THURSDAY, NOVEMBER SO, 1923

MR. BRUCE AND HIS CRITICS.

Mr. Bruce lins to accept the disadvantages of his position as Federal Trea-surer. One is that he is made the target of critics who know little about finance and nothing about economy. An election campaign being what it is, no surprise will be felt that Mr. Charlton and his party should denounce the financial administration of the Commonwealth. The Labour party is fond of harking back to the spacious days between 1912 and 1913, when it had a free hand in both Houses of Parliament. The party In those days was popular in the sense that a good spender in a bush shanty is popular. Mr. Bruce to-day is carrying many of the burdens which the free and easy Mr. Fisher laid upon the people. A Federal land tax was imposed when there was neither war nor thought of war, Customs revenue was booming, and was spent on the "bangle" bonus and by giving high wages to the "man on the Joh." The remnant of the old party is not in the least chastened by the war, and would spend more freely than ever. Wages would be increased, old-age pensions would be " liberalised," the sugar agreement would continue, and the price of sugar would be reduced. All that would be done were Mr. Charlton-or is it to be Mr. Anstey?-in the Treasury.

Apart from the wild and impossible campaign of the Labour party, Mr. Bruce has to endure a good deal from a more self complacent kind of political critics, who urge a reduction in expenditure, but who have not distinguished themselves by pressing for it at the right time or in the right place. The Treasurer is familiar with these Parliamentary methods applied against Japan. They are the methods by which expenditure is maintained at a high level. For years past n Budget has been debated with more or less zest on the first item of the Estimates (usually after half the money has been spent and in the course of the debate many suggestions are made for a general reduction, but many more suggestions are made for increases in the various items.

When all, has been said, the Budget has been passed as it was introduced, or, as was the case with the 1921-22 Budget, passed subject to directions for reduction, which were not errried out Election speeches are like the general debate on the Budget, full of knowledge of what should be done in a general way, but altogether lacking in particulars. For the plain truth is that a candidate, immediately he takes the platform, discerns the possibility of danger in being too definite.

Mr. Bruce is superior to the average member in attainments, in business experience, and in his contempt for the tricks of politics. But even he breathes the Parliamentary atmosphere. When he declares that public expenditure can-not be reduced more rapidly than is being done, he means (probably without knowing It) that it cannot be reduced because of ordinary Parliamentary conditions. The bangle bonus" stands at £800,000 or thereabouts because no member and no candidate cares to examine it. The Treasurer believed, and the Prime Minister believed, that to promise a reduction in this item so that it would be applied to the needy only would not be good election tactics. Members of the Labour party were probably disappointed that no reduction or readjustment was proposed, because there never can be too many electioneer-ing cries. Money is spent on the Federal Capital, not because it is necessary to push, on with the Federal Capital, but because it would be bad political business to offend that section which makes the Federal Capital a serious political issue. A Parliamentary commission went to the Northern Territory, through that immense area of remote possibilities, to report upon a projected railway. There was no real purpose in the inquiry, except the purely political one of satisfying a restless section in South Australia, a State which has profited, and which continues to profit, by having handed over the Terri-" tory."

When Mr. Bruce says that public expenditure cannot be reduced more rapidly, he means that it will not be reduced more rapidly. Knowing Parliament, be makes a shrewd guess which will perhaps prove to be right. But even a shrewd guess of what will be done will not convince the people that nothing better can be done. Nor will they be content quietly to accept all that the passive resistance of Parliamentarians has allowed so far. There are hopeful signs, and there have been results not altogether unsatisfactory. Those who are neither candidates nor members, but are merely taxpayers, have done something by battering at the door. Mr. Bruce knows that, and perhaps if his mind could be searched it would be found that he was not dis-pleased with all the "tumult without." The complacent gentlemen in Parliament, when they say that there is no possibility of reduction in expenditure, mean simply that to reduce it would make them unpopular with various interested sections. They may smile at. the bangle bonus," they may deplore the rapid increase in the public service wages sheet, but who are they that they should sacrifice their political prospects for a political principle?

It is easier to spend than to save. That is a free translation of that rigid horse, "it cannot be done." Everyone knows that it could be done were it not

that money is flowing into the Treasury j ed

in such generous streets. There was a _?__ time-an unfortunate time, which no stone

would wish to recur In the history j t. of Victoria when the word retrench.) j.

ment was popular The politician used it in all seriousness because the people as a whole were serious J expenditure was reduced because the pressure of circumstances and of public opinion required it The need, exists now, but it has not made itself so pressing that politicians need pay it more than lip service Mr Bruce has done something towards the reduction of expenditure That he has not done more is due to the Parliamentary system of which he is a part that he has done so much has been due to the extra Parliamentary criticism which will continue because

the critics believe that the reductions

which cannot be made can be

made

Uranium ioTCoÜinä I