Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/671

FINANCE. But the vital point is whether expenditure has outstripped wealth. Owing to the extreme uncertainty of all calculations of national wealth, this is a point which cannot be determined with absolute accuracy. They appear, however, to have kept pace with national wealth in France, but to have fallen slightly behind in the United States, and considerably behind in Great Britain.

Respecting local expenditure our information is less explicit. Figures cannot be presented for as many countries. In the United States we have census figures on this point up to 1890, but no investigation into local expenditure was made in the census of 1900. In 1870 local expenditures were 47 per cent. of all public expenditures, and in 1890 they had reached 61 per cent. In Great Britain the share of local expenditure rose from 34 per cent. in 1870 to 44 per cent. in 1890, while in France it rose from 21 per cent. in 1876 to 30 per cent. in 1890. This increase in local expenditures is to be accounted for chiefly by the fact that the rapidly increasing developmental expenditures fall in great part upon the local governments. To estimate their true significance for the general welfare and for the financial outlook of a nation, the expenditures should be weighed as well as measured. In general, the growth of military expenditure is to be deplored. Yet even this has its compensations, since the army, especially in some of the more eastern parts of Europe, contributes by its training in discipline to industrial efficiency. On the other hand, the increase of the developmental expenditures must, if wisely directed, be a clear national gain. The facts can only be surmised from the general statements of public expenditure which are classified statistically by administrative departments rather than by classes of expenditure. We may cite a few facts for the national expenditure of the United States, tabulated from the Treasury statements:

The nomenclature of the Treasury report is here adopted, though the interest on the public debt, a permanent charge on the revenues, might appropriately be included among the net ordinary expenditures. The table displays in condensed form some tendencies of expenditure in recent years. The fall in the interest charge is compensated by the rise of other expenditures, the aggregate ordinary expenditure here given doubling from 1870 to 1895. In thii rise of 160.8 million dollars, pensions had the largest share, leaving but 47.7 million dollars to be distributed among the other item named. The combined military and naval expenditures were practically unchanged in the two years compared, while the increase fell in some degree to the Indians, but in larger measure to the miscellaneous expenditure of the Government. This growth in miscellaneous expenditure is largely for developmental functions. In times of peace a considerable part of the military expenditures, namely, the improvement of rivers and harbors, belongs to the same class. The influence of war expenditures is shown in the comparison of 1895 with 1901, when we find military and naval expenditure comprising 124.5 million dollars in an aggregate increase of 152.4 million dollars, the remainder falling again to the miscellaneous expenditure.

. A comparison of the budgets of leading nations to show the place occupied in each of the several classes of expenditure is an inquiry which tempts the student, but which is confronted with well-nigh insurmountable difficulties. The most serious is the fact that while data for the finances of the several local governments are frequently missing the distribution of functions and therefore of financial responsibility between the nation and the various subordinate governments differs greatly in the several States. This distribution rests upon constitutional provisions and administrative regulation. In comparing national budgets we find little that is common to all except the expenses of foreign intercourse, national defense, and public-debt charges. To ascertain, therefore, the proportional costs of the several items of public expenditure would require a compilation of all the expenses of all the local governments in addition to the figures for national expenditure. The lack of figures for such local expenditure renders a statistical study of national budgets, without note or commentary, valueless. The proportion of military and naval expenditure in the budgets of the Great Powers, as shown in the following table, reflects quite as much the distribution of functions as it does the importance of these expenditures:

In Austria-Hungary the Government whose expenditures are here noted exists only for the