The record-union., 1897-08-30

ern government everywhere provides
for something more than absolute ne
cessity, and contributes more and more
TO the pleasures and comforts of the
people. The demand for still greater
outlay along these lines is constant,
and becoming more and more press
ing
We have added TO the bureaus of the
Government a large number of aids, ali
costly, such as engineering specialties.
sanitary and quarantine work, weather
bureau service and good road inquiry,
the Department of Agriculture as a
Cabinet arm, Indian schools and farms.
many reservations. parks, hospitals and
home retreats, technical schools under
Government direction, naval military
reserves, improved arms service for the
organized militia and new systems of
coast and harbor defenses.
We are sending out more and more Of
scientific parties and more and more
encourag ging research and scientific in
quiry. Consulates have increased in
number as also ministerial deputations,
some Of which have recently been raised
TO Embassadoral dignity. The increas-
ing complexity of our relations with
other nations, the extending commerce
Of the country and the multiplication of
questions requiring consultation and
conference have demanded of us an
exceeding large number of commissions
to go abroad or to sit at home, while
that We cannot ignore, call upon
US for almost constant representation
in bodies Of world Importance
So, too, the Government in the last
twenty-five years has been called upon
as never before either to directly pro-
mote, or countenance by making exhi-
billions a large number of industrial
expositions abroad and at home. The
coast survey, life saving and light SER
vice have been greatly increased by the
demands of eommerce-and so on
through an exceedingly long list
of constantly augmenting de-
mands upon the arms of the
Federal Government, to say moth
ing whatever of the enormous expendi
lures in the last half of the century for
Internal Improvements, the promotion
of river and harbor work and the like.
The truth is that public expenditures
are increasing all over the world, and
in disproportion to any other factors
except the demands of civilization for
greater comforts, greater knowledge,
augmented conveniences and improved
means of communication and transpor-
ration.
That this disproportion exists, so far
from being to the discredit of the times,
is, Oh the contrary to its infinite credit
and is to be sung in it's praise. Just
what the proportion between govern
mental output and Government income
and taxation in the last and the first
halves of the century, we are not pre-
pared to state, but We incline to the be-
lief that the outgo calls for a consider
ably larger proportion of individual
earnings and savings now than in the
earlier history of the Government, cast
ing out of the consideration wholly the
revenue derived from the sale of pub
lie lands, and some other sources of
income not to be charged up to the ac-
count of taxation, and excluding con-
sideration of the enormous cost of the
late war, and the vast sum of obligation
it entailed in the way of pension pay
ing.
The simple truth is that we have a
broad gauge civilization, and our gov
ernmental expense freely responds to
it. We apprehend that in nine cases
out of ten where complaints are made
! by socialistie advocates and narrow
viewed political economists, of enor-
nous Government expenditure, if
the test is made the complainants have
in mind and give expression to some
demand for new activity upon the part
Of the Federal Government, calling for
| still greater expenditure.