THE VICTORY LOAN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 3, 29 August 1944, Page 4

THE VICTORY LOAN

THE Whakatane area is asked to find £109,804 towards the £40,000,000 Victory War Loan which was officially launched yesterday. The above figure was fixed at the recent conference when delegates from the Thames-Bay of Plenty area met for the purpose of planning and organising the campaign. A total of £771,000 is asked from the joint postal districts, and the individual allocations are set out as under: Thames £87,421; Ngatea £14,081; Turua £15,086; Waitakaruru £13,076; Paeroa £72,947; Hikutaia £9116; Te Aroha £65,471; Waihou £20,145; Waitoa £35,253; Tauranga £147,619; Waihi £71,619; Katikati £23,873; Te Puke £59,190; Whakatane £69,866; Matata £10,200; Taneatua £23,691; Te Teko £5777; Coromandel £18,531; Whitianga £7768. These figures may appear to be inequitable in their application to certain districts but they are the outcome of a close study of the districts concerned and should in any case serve as a guide to approximate targets. Up to the present time the war has cost New Zealand £383,000,000, which has been found in the following manner: Loans raised £182,000,000; taxation £145,000,000; reverse lease-lend £49,000,000; less sundry adjustments £3,000,000; total £383,000,000. A great "'"amount of this vast sum has been spent in New Zealand, increasing the bank deposits and causing the. note issue to expand. There is to-day £100,000,000 more purchasing power available in New Zealand than was the case before the outbreak of war. With this in mind it has also to be remembered that with so many men overseas and withdrawn from industry the consumption of goods could not possibly approach the normal level for the Dominion. This being the case it is necessary to ensure that the great volume of war-produced purchasing power be held in check until some such time as the return of normal conditions enables goods to be once more manufactured and made available for purchase at a reasonable price. Should the war end suddenly, as there appears, now to be every likelihood, in the reaction which follows, there would be released a great wave of spending power, and the tendency would be to still further deplete the store of the country's consumer goods, which is already small. Prices would automatically rocket higher than ever. The return of our soli diers to civilian life would of course go a long way towards remedying »the position, and money spent later on in more "Stabilised times will have much greater purchasing power, plus the added advantage, of a wider variety, of goods. For this reason an investment in the present war loan is not a gesture towards the country's war effort but it is also a direct benefit to the person concerned. For the above reasons it is not merely a duty to support the loan, but sound* economic judgment to do so.