(2) The Treasury is supposed to have the function of control, but a change appears to have taken place, and it has now to a great extent lost its control, and has even itself become a spending body. Professor A.L. Lowell, in the work above referred to, after speaking of the Treasury as the department which exhibits in the highest degree the merits of the British Government, points out that even ten years ago, "with the waning desire for economy and the growth of other interests, the Treasury has to some extent lost its predominant position; although it will no doubt maintain its control over the details of expenditure, one cannot feel certain that its head will regain the powerful influence upon general or financial policy exerted thirty years ago." A very guarded statement, as was becoming in an author writing in another country at a time when the tendencies to which he alludes were only beginning to show themselves. Things have advanced during the last ten years in the direction Professor Lowell indicated as probable, and it is high time that this advance should be stopped. We might venture to ask, indeed, the following questions: (i) Has not the Treasury during the last ten years lost a large portion of its control, and since the War almost its whole control over expenditure on a large scale? (ii) Is the Treasury not more concerned with paltry details than in imposing any real check on the extravagance of spending departments? (iii) Has not the policy sometimes been actually to encourage expenditure, and has not there been one case at least, even of introducing vexatious taxation where the amount collected is far less than the cost of collection? (iv) What has the Treasury done to prevent or control "the orgy of extravagance" since the War began? The department of State which has to do with revenue, with getting as much as possible and spending only what is necessary, which has the duty of "making both ends meet," ought to resume its functions and regain its influence so that the Government may be conducted "on strict business principles," to use Professor Lowell's phrase, "as it was throughout a great part of the nineteenth century." (3) The Cabinet should exercise more controlling power, and recognise its collective responsibility for keeping down expenditure. As Professor Lowell points out, the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Cabinet was one of almost commanding influence. In Mr. Gladstone's time his powerful personality, regularly exercised in favour of national economy, did certainly have a great effect in preventing extravagance, and some other Chancellors of the Exchequer no doubt used an influence in that direction, but can it be safely asserted that there is in the Cabinet as a whole sufficient attention given to retrenchment?