PAYING FOR THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 216, 11 September 1940, Page 6

PAYING FOR THE WAR.

An economic conference attended by many delegates from workers and producers' organisations is being held in Wellington. How to pay for the war will receive a lot of attention. Money j is useful in many ways, but how to separate it from debt is a problem that is old as history. It looks simple: endless quantities can be issued from a reserve hank or a Bank of England, but countries that tested the idea in the past did not have a happy experience, yet if debts are allowed to mount up as in the last war, this time at an accelerated pace, shaos must overtake us. Under the Mosaic law the Israelites were forbidden to charge usury of each other. They were permitted to take it off a stranger, but not if he were poor. On top of this came the order that all debts were to be forgiven or cancelled every fiftieth year, but that was not to stop lending; monev was to be freely lent even although the year of release were near. Will history repeat itself? Interest-free loans may soon be compulsory, while the man in j street says —these loans cannot be . repaid; when the war is over they must be cancelled. The economic conference in Wellington will not find a solution. as it Li no mure capable of solving the problem of money than Parliament it>elf. which has merely passed on an impossible task to its critics. Is it not time we tried to evolve a moneyless system? 1 C. K. McDOXALD.