to maintain our staying power, and that these resources are at present being scandalously wasted by the Government.  Inter-departmental competition is still complained of in the latest report of the National Committee on Expenditure, and there seems to be still very little evidence that the Government Departments have yet possessed themselves of the simple fact that it is only out of these resources that victory can be secured, and that any waste of them is therefore a crime against the cause of liberty and progress.

It is possible that before these lines are in print the Chancellor will have brought in his new Budget, and therefore any attempt to forecast the measures by which he will meet next year’s revenue would be even more futile than most other endeavours at prophecy.  But from the figures of last year as they are before us we see once more that the proportion of expenditure raised by revenue still leaves very much to be desired; L707 millions out of, roughly, L2700 millions is not nearly enough.  It is true that on the expenditure side large sums have been put into assets which may some day or other be recoverable, and it is therefore impossible to assume with any approach to accuracy what the actual cost of the war has been for us during the past year.  We have made, for instance, very large advances to our Allies and Dominions, and it need not be said that our advances to our own Dominions may be regarded as quite as good as if they were still in our own pockets; but in the case of our Allies, our loans to Russia are a somewhat questionable asset, and our loans to our other brothers-in-arms cannot be regarded as likely to be recoverable for some time to come, owing to the severity with which the war’s pressure has been laid upon them.  With regard to the other assets in which the Government has invested our money, such as factories, machinery, ships, supplies and food, etc., it is at least possible that considerable loss may be involved in the realisation of some of them.  It is, however, possible that the actual cost of the war to us during the year that is past may turn out some day to have been in the neighbourhood of L2000 millions.  If, on the other hand, we deduct from the L700 millions raised by revenue the L200 millions which represent the normal pre-war cost of Government to this country we find that the proportion of war’s cost raised out of revenue is slightly over 25 per cent.  This proportion must be taken with all reserve for the reasons given above, but in any case it is very far below the 47 per cent. of the war’s cost raised out of revenue by our ancestors in the course of the Napoleonic wars.