Writers in the Home reviews—not alone Mr. Maxse either—have been seriously concerned of late with the weakness of the Government, and the Paisley election which saw Mr, Asquith returned to Parliament, is taken as an indication that the electorate has fully awakened to it and demands a change. We presume that the bread dole, spoken of in to-day's news, will be hailed as emphasizing this weakness. For a country which is sweating to save every cent it can, a subsidy of £50,000,000 is no light gift to make, and in it is too much of the appearance of the proverbial sop to Cerberus. Economically, as the "Spectator" used to point out weekly during the war, these subsidies are wrong. Let the price of bread soar, there will be inconvenience and hardship for a year, but farmers the whole world over will rush to grow wheat and down will drop the prices. Unfortunately the war disturbed much sound economic practice. It acted as a forcing house for the subsidy habit, and it will require either a bold government or one wearying of office to discontinue the most noted one in face of the prevailing discontent over high prices.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.