Now a national budget may consist of two parts, one of which I will call
the "responsive" and the other the "non-responsive" portion. The
responsive portion is the part that may be expected to answer sooner or
later--later perhaps rather than sooner--to alterations in general
conditions, and particularly to price alterations. If there is a very
marked difference in general price level, the salaries--both by the
addition or remission of bonuses and the general alteration in scales
for new entrants--may be expected to alter, at any rate, in the same
direction, and that part of the expense which consists of the purchase
of materials will also be responsive. The second, or non-responsive
part, is the part that has a fixed expression in currency, and does not
alter with changed conditions. This, for the most part, is the capital
and interest for the public debt.
Now the nature and gravity of the "long distance" problem is almost
entirely a question of the proportions which these two sections bear to
each other. If the non-responsive portion is a small percentage of the
total the problem will not be important, but if it is larger, then the
question must be faced seriously. Suppose, for example, that you have
now a total budget of 900 million pounds, and that, in the course of
time, all values are expressed at half the present currency figure.
Imagine that the national income in this instance is 3600 million
pounds. Then the burden, on a first approximation, is 25 per cent. Now,
if the whole budget is responsive, we may find it ultimately at 450
million pounds out of a national income of 1800 million pounds, _i.e._
still 25 per cent. But let the non-responsive portion be 400 million
pounds, then your total budget will be 650 million pounds out of a
national income of about 2000 million pounds, or 33-1/3 per cent., and
every alteration in prices--or what we call "improvement" in the cost of
living--becomes an extraordinarily serious matter as a burden upon new
enterprise in the future.
Let me give you a homely and familiar illustration. During the war the
nation has borrowed something that is equivalent to a pair of boots.
When the time comes for paying back the loan it repays something which
is equivalent to two pairs or, possibly, even to three pairs. If the
total number of boots produced has not altered, you will see what an
increasing "pull" this is upon production. There are, of course, two
ways in which this increasing pull--while a great boon to the person who
is being repaid--must be an increased burden to the individual. Firstly,
if the number of people making boots increases substantially, it may
still be only one pair of boots for the same volume of production, if
the burden is spread over that larger volume. Secondly, even supposing
that the number of individuals is not increased, if the arts of
production have so improved that two pairs can be produced with the same
effort as was formerly necessary for one, then the debt may be repaid by
them without the burden being actually heavier than before.
Now, coming back to the general problem. The two ways in which the
alteration in price level can be prevented from resulting in a heavier
individual burden than existed at the time when the transaction was
begun, are a large increase in the population with no lower average
wealth, or a large increase in wealth with the same population--which
involves a greatly increased dividend from our complex modern social
organism with all its mechanical, financial, and other differentiated
functions. Of course, some of the debt burden is responsive, so far as
the annual charge is concerned, on that part of the floating debt which
is reborrowed continually at rates of interest which follow current
money rates, but, even so, the burden of capital repayment remains. An
opportunity occurs for putting sections of the debt upon a lower annual
charge basis whenever particular loans come to maturity, and there may
be some considerable relief in the annual charge in the course of time
by this method.
What are the prospects of the two methods that I have mentioned coming
to our rescue in this "long distance" problem? It is a problem to which
our present "short distance" contribution is, you will admit, a very
poor one, for we have not so far really made any substantial
contribution from current revenue towards the repayment of the debt.