WAR FINANCE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 56, 30 November 1918, Page 9

WAR FINANCE

Sir,—The people of this country seem to have become completely dazzled by tho lustrous brilliancy of Sir Joseph Ward's abilities as a financier. I. am afraid those of us who live long onoug'h are goinr; to bo sadly disillusioned. I notice that in tho new Budget ho proposes to raise more loans, and to make no increase in taxation. In this connection I venture to encroach on your valuable space by quoting from an exceedingly able article on war' finance appearing in "The Times Literary Supplement" of August 15 last:—

"If we borrow for.war'purposes, <thon those who stay at home and earn high wages and big war profits are able to make- large subscriptions to war loans, while their fellows who havo gone to the front with a soldier's pay havo no, or much less,- chance of doing so. Then, when the war is over, the soldiers conic back to civil life and have to take their share in paying the debt charge, which goes into the pockets of those who stayed at home. So that.-.by borrowing instead of taxing we. actually impoverish the future of those vho are fighting our battles."

Millions have been tied tip beyond the reach of taxation. Our returned soldiers and their children will hnvo to bear the burden. "In the words of Professor W. JR. Scott, Professor of Political Economy in the "University of Glasgow, the Government, "less merciful than the highwayman, would demand not a man's money or his life, but botti his life and his money." Whore will it all end?—l am, etc., G.G.