rhaps generally--valid, it is none the less true that the run which is
foreshadowed is at times so long as to make the taxpayer, who has to
bear the present cost, gasp for breath before the promised goal is
reached. Pericles, by laying out huge sums on the public buildings of
Athens, earned the undying gratitude of artistic posterity. Whether his
action was in the true interests of his Athenian contemporaries is
perhaps rather more doubtful. The recent history of Argentina is an
instance of a country in which, as subsequent events have proved, the
plea for lavish capital expenditure was perfectly justifiable, but in
which, nevertheless, the over-haste shown in incurring heavy liabilities
led to much temporary inconvenience and even disaster. But on the whole
it may be said that where all the general conditions are favourable, and
point conclusively to the possibility and probability of fairly rapid
economic development, a bold financial policy may and should be adopted,
even although it may not be easy to prove beforehand by very exact
calculations that any special project under consideration will be
directly remunerative. Egyptian finance is a case in point. At a time
when the country was in the throes of bankruptcy, a fresh loan of
L1,000,000 was, to the dismay of the conventional financiers,
contracted, the proceeds of which were spent on irrigation works. So
also the construction of the Assouan dam, which cost nearly double the
sum originally estimated, was taken in hand at a moment when a
liability of a wholly unknown amount on account of the war in the Soudan
was hanging over the head of the Egyptian Treasury. In both of these
cases subsequent events amply justified the financial audacity which had
been shown. In the case of Burma there appears to be no doubt as to the
wealth of the province or its capacity for further development. In view
of all the circumstances of the case the amount of twelve millions,
which is apparently all that has been spent on railway construction
since 1869, would certainly appear to be rather a niggardly sum. In
spite, therefore, of the very unnecessary warmth with which Sir George
Scott has urged his views, it is to be hoped that his plea for the
adoption of a somewhat bolder financial policy in the direction of
expenditure on railways, and still more on feeder roads, will receive
from the India Office, with whom the matter really rests, the attention
which it would certainly appear to d