Mar. 20.
Ye can conquer unemployment." the pledge with which the Liberal Party will xo to the country at the general election now less than two months ahead, is undoubtedly the best ery tha has yet been heard, The Labour leaders promise "Socialism in our time," and thus effectually: frighten off many who m otherwise vote for them.
Conservatives still seem rather undecided what to offer and 30 far rely on a record about which the country is by no means 20 enthusiastic as are they themselves. It is a small thing, perhaps, but the obsti of the unpopular may be "Dora's" little from whom Sir William Jenson Hicks declines to be parted, is quite likely to lose the Conservatives a number of votes. And their trump card the Derati Bill is above the heads of most.
In contrast, the Liberal ery is, simple and alluring, and anyo can understand how it is at riy rate proposed to fulfil its promise. "There is to be a grand Rational system of trunk roads sith readjustment of side reads Serving them and reconstruct of bridges—in all, employment for 250,000 men; anther 30,000 will find work in draining lands now waterlogged; 122,000. will be set to the development of Post Office telephones and elec trical expansion; 24,000 to the enlarging of London passenger transport. There still remain a good many unemployed, according to weekly returns. "But Mr. Lloyd George is quite confident can provide for them too. In his speech on March 1, opening the Liberal campaign, he told his audience that the work whic! he and his friends could put la hand at once "will reduce the terrible figures of the workless in the course of a single year to normal proportions and will, when completed, enrich the nation and equip it for successfully competing with all its rivals in the business of the world."
Most alluring of all is Inv. Lloyd George's promise that "these plans will not add one penny to the national or local taxation." The immediate cost lof the road scheme is to be met by a loan of £200,000,000; but that, Mr. Lloyd George frankly says, will not cover all his plans: and his critics bitterly ejaculate "Not by a long chalk, reassures his audience at once by promising that his works will earn enough to pay the interest fon all borrowings themselves, They will be "not merely useful but essential to the well being of the nation." And then there the dole. Nobody has been bold enough to suggest that the unemployed should be made to work for the support the State gives them, on so lavish a scale that it often pays a man better, or at least gives him less trouble, to draw the dole than to take the work he might ser. Mr, Lloyd George would attack the problem from the other side: and as he reckons, probably correctly, that unemployment costs £75,000,000 a year, he would say that; if this could be wed, here was the interest on is Loan covered several times, en if his work scheme were not as remunerative as he expects. It certainly looks well on paper that the Liberal press combine in a chorus of praise. But one seems to detect a certain forced note in their chanting.
It all looks a little too easy, too. much of the "something for nosss about it. And critics unkindly recall that in the past Mr. Lloyd George's famous taxation of land values, which was going to yield such a wonderful return, actually Drought in $1,800,000 in ten years and involved an adminis expenditure of five Three weeks after Mr. Lloyd George's projects had been unfolded, an election speech at Leicester gave Mr. Baldwin an opportunity to criticize, A good of the Liberal proposal, he argued, was already being in electrification and passenger transport. But in ground of attack is that "borrowing like drink pro duces the inevitable headache."
We will not countenance reckless depression of the credit of the. country (eid the Prime Minister)
plunging into vast and ill-considered schemes of so-called develop-iment which, ultimately, will do mote: harm than good.
"There's the respect must give use" That the nation's has survived the great war, the awful load of payments to America, the general strike and bad trade, is something to be thankful for indeed; and we may believe that the generat disposition of voters will be to do nothing which may imperil this great asset, but rather let atters the course of they seem set, n if for some sears to come ig still necessary to support thousands of workers in idleness, Since the beginning of the year there have been solid signs of a revival in important industries, iron, steel, shipbuilding, cotton coal, the last named in particular having begun to look up even before the cold weather on the Continent brought a flood of orders to British mines. The trade balance for the past year is estimated at not less than £150 millions in Great Britain's favour, These are facts which ought to tell more in favour of the Conservatives than any other argument they can offer. The Strongest proof that could be found of the gradual subsidence of the heady disorders con sequent on the war, and of return of national sanity, is the general desire of people at Home to be let alone and not have the prosperity which appears at last to be reviving endangered by sensational legislation. Another symptom is the growing ness against bureaucratic con-{vol and the deplorable tendency of Parliament to delegate its functions to the permanent departments, This is too big question to enlarge upon here, [but the habit of loosely framing Acts of Parliament and Jeaving the details to the civil servants to fill in as they please, is something dead against English custom and involves a serious con stitutional question, No party has a worse reputation for swelling the incubus of bureau cracy than the Liberals, How mach it would be added to by Mr. Lloyd George's new projects, lone can only dimly speculate,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.