i6o

ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

on the principle. But a proposal to reversemeasures already in force involves a denial of theprinciple as well as of the feasibility.

I should like, though it is rash, to make, if onlyfor purposes of illustration, a very rough guessas to the magnitudes of the more immediateconsequences of the adoption of economies of£100,000,000, carried out on the lines of theCommittee’s recommendations. I should ex-pect something like the following:

(1) An increase of 250,000-400,000 in thenumber of the unemployed;

(2) A decrease of, say, £20,000,000 in theexcess of our imports over our exports;

(3) A decrease of £ 10,000,000 to £ 15,000,000in the savings of the general public;

(4) A decrease of £20,000,000 to £30,000,000in business profits;

(5) A decrease of £ 10,000,000 to £ 15,000,000in the personal expenditure of business menand others, who depend on business profits, asa result of these profits being less;

(6) A decrease of £5,000,000 to £10,000,000in the aggregate of capital construction andworking capital and other investment at homeentered upon by private enterprise, as a result ofthe lower level of business profits, after allowingfor any favourable psychological effects on busi-ness “confidence” of the adoption of the Com-mittee’s recommendations:

(7) A net reduction in the Government deficitnot exceeding £50,000,000, as a result of theBudget economies of £ 100,000,000 being partly