Retrenchment

This article is about a political doctrine. For other uses, see Retrenchment (disambiguation).

Retrenchment (French: retrenchment, an old form of retranchement, from retrancher, to cut down, cut short) is an act of cutting down or reduction, particularly of public expenditure.

Political usage

The word is familiar in this, its most general sense, from the motto of the Gladstonian Liberal party in British politics, "Peace, Retrenchment and Reform."

The manifesto for 1906 Liberal landslide was launched with this slogan:

Expenditure calls for taxes, and taxes are the plaything of the tariff reformer. Militarism, extravagance, protection are weeds which grow in the same field, and if you want to clear the field for honest cultivation you must root them all out. For my own part, I do not believe that we should have been confronted by the spectre of protection if it had not been for the South African war. ... Depend upon it that in fighting for our open ports and for the cheap food and material upon which the welfare of the people and the prosperity of our commerce depend we are fighting against those powers, privileges, injustices, and monopolies which are unalterably opposed to the triumph of democratic principles.

See also

• Retrenchment (computing)
• Retrenchment (military)

Sources

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)