The Dominion MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1915. WAR FINANCE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2619, 15 November 1915, Page 4

The Dominion MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1915. WAR FINANCE

The British Prime Minister is asking the House of Commons for another war vote, the amount this time being £400,000,000. This large sum is only equal to the expendj ture for 100 days, for the war is oosting Britain £4,000,000 a day. This is the fifth vote in the present financial year, and raises the total for 1915-16 to £1,300,000,000, which will give some idea of what the war means expressed in cash. It is also the- eighth vote of credit proposed since the outbreak of war, and makes the total since August 6, 1914, £1,652,000,000. Some of the expenditure is recoverable, for it is estimated that about -£-100,000 3 000 has been advanced to Britain's Allies. The cost to Russia and France is practically as great as that of Britain, and the German expenditure is also on : a colossal scale. The British attitude towards war expenditure is in striking contrast with the Gorman policy. The German Government is pawning securities, has instituted a - non-convertible paper currency, and rather boasts of not having imposed any fresh taxation. In this latter respect discretion is tho better part of valour, for it is difficult to see who would be able to meet the- increased taxation were it imposed, for apart from Krupp's and a few other factories engaged in the manufacture of munitions, there is nobody in a position to pay such taxes. The Germans arc finding it hard enough to live with food prices ascending, factories idle, and ports practically closed to trade. Tho industries of Germany, apart from those engaged in producing war supplies, are at a standstill, and there have been several important bankruptcies- The shipping in-s dustry of Germany, which, in the pre-war days, was a formidable competitor in almost all seas, is hopelessly bankrupt. Dr. Helfferich, the German Minister of Finance, when asking for a war credit in September, announced that no new taxes would bo imposed during the war towards payment of the German war bill, or even to pay current interest on the war loans. After \the war is over a tax will bo .imposed on war profits made by German manufacturers and other business men, but for the rest, Germany looks to the indemnities she is going to exact from hor defeated oncmies to pay not only her war bill, but also to pay pensions to disabled German soldiers and to the dependents of soldiers who have been killed. In Great Britain there is the fullest confidence as to final victory, but British people recognise that they will have to pay their war bill instead of presenting it to the defeated nations, and in this they are quite right. Germany is borrowing mainly from her own people, and when she is defeated she will .bo forced to repudiate, at all events there will be no possibility of redeeming tho mass of paper now afloat and to be floated. Already the British' Government has imposed war taxation which is expected to bring in a total of £175,000,000 a year. _ Tho ordinary revenue of the British Government is £200,000,000, and the war taxation will bo in addition to this. At a rough estimate a war revenue of £175,000,000 will meet the interest on £2,500,000,000 of war loans at 4i per cent., and also provide a sinking fund of 1 per cent. Provision has also to be made for war pensions to disabled soldiers and sailors, and the dependents of soldiers and sailors who are killed. To produce this increased revenue the taxation imposed is extremely heavy, but it is being faced with cheerfulness in spite of the fact that; there is prospect of still heavier burdens should the war continue beyond the current financial year. In New Zealand our war taxation is light by comparison with that of the Mother Country. It is interesting to note \ that the expenditure of £4,000,000 a day, or £1,460,000,000 a year, on the war by Britain represents about one-half the national income. The figures for Germany are by no means so satisfactory.. In 1 tho Reichstag vacantly Dr, Hei.iter- • ioh stated that tjae cost-of the war

was about £15,000,000 a day, of which Germany had to bear onethird. The highest estimate of Germany's income, according to a neutral writer in the Spectator, is that of Steinmann-Bucheb, who places it at £2,000,000,000 a year. __ Germany therefore spends nine-tenths of her annual income on the war, whereas England spends only one-half of hers, or, taking the cost per head of population, Germany has a surplus income after paying her war expenses of only- £3 per head, as against Britain's £31 per head. The conclusion drawn from these figures is that Germany will be beaten economically' and financially, and this in the near future;