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3 I 2     ECONOMIC  INQUIRIES  AND  STUDIES

                   be  set against  the  actual  increase of debt  during the
                   last few years.
                     2.  The Civil Service expenditure of a miscellane6us
                   kind accounts for very little of the large growth of ex-
                   penditure  with  which  we  have  been  dealing  (Table
                   IV.).  The Financial Abstract now shows in a line the
                   whole of the expenditure for civil  government, includ-
                   ing the Civil Service estimates and the charges on the
                   Consolidated  Fund, apart  frpm  the  debt  charge,  but
                  excluding the charges for the collection of revenue and
                  'for the Post Office.  The figure of this expenditure last
                   year was £24,854,000, and if we carry it back, we find
                   that the corresponding figure in  1861  was £9,659,000.
                   This  is  a  considerable  increase,  nearly  £, I 5,000,000,
                   but on further analysis we find  that the increase in the
                  education  charge  alone  was  from  £'1,097,000  to
                  £  I 2,662,000, or nearly  12  million  £  of the  total, and
                  that  the miscellaneous Civil Service expenditure-the
                  general charge for the civil government of the country
                  -has only increased from £,6,266,000 to £'10,623,000,
                  or,  including  Consolidated  Fund  charges,  from
                  £8,562,000  to  £12,192,000,  or  about  31  million  £,.
                  This  is  again  subject  to  the  observation above made
                  as  to  services  transferred  to  local  authorities,  and to
                  some  doubts  as  to  the  manipulation of the estimates,
                  by  which  the  expenditure  is  partly  concealed i  but,
                  making  all  allowance  for  such  observations, the facts
                  appear  to  show  that  a  common  impression  as  to  the
                  formidable  growth  of Civil  Service  expenditure,  on
                  which about fifteen years ago Lord Randolph Churchill
                  thought  he  could  save  10  million  £,  is  hardly  well
                  founded.  Lord  Randolph Churchill, in  fact,  sacrificed
                  his career for a pure blunder.
                     3. The growth of education expenditure in particular,
                  to  which  attention  has  been  drawn,  is  an  undoubted
                  makeweight in the present position.
                    4.  The  charge for collection  of the  revenue, apart
                  from the Post Office, like the Civil Service expenditure
                  generally, has remained comparatively stationary, being
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