The Dominion. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1919. WAR BURDENS
Attention has been directed pointedly of late to the magnitude of war burdens here and in other countries of the Empire, and it has to be recognised that these burdens furnish strong arguments, if they were needed, for the maintenance of safe and stable government and of such conditions generally as will ensure tho smooth development of industry and production. No British country is hopelessly loaded down with debt as an outcome of the war, and the position of tho •Mother Country, which is moat heavily burdened of all, is enviable in comparison with that of Francoand some other European States. Yet the war burdens and obligations incurred by the different portions of the Empire are in themselves enormous, and impose such a charge on national resources that any departure from sound and economical administration or serious development of the industrial unrest which is the greatest foe to production would invite conditions of disaster. Facts _ and . figures relating to the financial position in Great (Britain and in Australia which have been made available recently show that this country is on the whole fortunately placed. Our advantage, however, is chiefly in the fact that wt have ready means of stimulating and expanding production and so of maintaining a buoyant national Government extravagance or the dislocation of industry would soon bring the Dominion to as serious straits as those of countries which at present arc more seriously affected by the-aftarmatli of war. The tremendous increase during the war period in the public indebtedness of our own and other British countries is perhaps not as coirirhonly appreciated as it ought to be. According to' a statementmade the other day by Mb. Bonau Law in the House of Commons, the net debt of Great Britain, exclusive of sums borrowed and lent to the Allies and the Dominions, is £7,000,000,000. Before the war it stood at approximately £700,000,000, so that it has increased tenfold, or by about £140 per head of population; Speaking at Bcmligo a little over a week ago, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth stated that Us public debt now stood at £740,liPO,OOO, 'including'£36o,ooo,ooo borrowed for railways and other rev-enue-producing assets. Australia therefore has doubled its debt during the war, but the additional indebtedness per head is only abouthalf as much as in Great Britain. A summarised statement of New Zealand's war burdens was given by the Prime Minister during last session. He pointed out Lhab before tho war the debt of this country was unJer £100,000,000 (the net debt in J9M was £91,659,000, the amount of debentures and stock in circulation wus just under £100,000,000). The total war expenditure. Mil. Mabsey added, was going to be over £100,000,000. At five and a half per cent, this would be £5,500,000 per annum in addition to the responsibilities that were in existence before the war. War pensions would bring the amount up ty £7,300,000, and this was not all. Disregarding pensions, the additional debt per head in Nn.w Zealand is about £92 as compared with approximately .■67a'in Australia and JJMO in Great Britain. Even when allowance is made for the fact tiiat the maintenance of the Australian naval squadron is a chargt: on revenue, the war hurdons incurred by this Dominion are heavier on a population basis than tliMe of the Commonwealth, though appreciably lighter than those of the Mother Country. It says a good deal for the productivity of this country and the energy of its people that although it is carrying heavier war burdens per head of population than the Commonwealth it is on the whole doeidedly better placed as regards the financial position and outlook. Evidcncevof the financial difficulties under which Australia is labouring has hem afforded in various ways. For instance, in presenting his revised Budget to the House of Commons at the end of October, tho British Chancellor of the Exchbquer spoke of unanticipated delays in the payment of sums due by Australia in connection with tho maintenance of her miJiLnry forces. The course taken by the Federal Government in regard to war gratuities is in any case highly suggestive of straitened finance. Tt is proposed to pay the gratuities not in cash but in bonds to bo redeemed over a period of years, partly by sums to be received in the way of indemnity from Germany. With a hard election fight in hand,.complicated by the organisation of the farmers as an independent political force, it is fairly certain t,li;it TVI n. Hughes and his colleaguiis would not, have resorted to such ;i device had there been any obvious means of paying tho gratuity in cash. It must be assumed that tho proposal was based upon acute flnnneial difficulties since its authors cannot have _ failed to foresee that their political opponents would at once soize the opportunity of dangling tho payment of a cash gratuity as a bait_ before soldier electors. Mit. li-vas , in fact lost no time in announcing that he and his followers if they secured a majority would pay a gratuity of tho amount pro-
posed b,v the Government, but in cash. It is one of the worst clangers besetting a country loaded with heavy financial burdens that politicians of a certain type are always rciuly to rush in with promises of lavish expenditure where more responsible administrators feel it necessary to proceed with caution. In this country the question of gratuities has t-en settled, it may be hoped, once ior all. The Dominion is in the fortunate position of being able, without resorting to extraordinary expedients, to deal justly by its soldiers in regard not only to gratuities but to soldier settlement and all aspects of repatriation. The need of cautious financial administration is, however, as clearly marked liere as in Australia. The simple position to be faced is that during the war years we have incurred sucli obligations as for years to come will absorb annually an amount equal to about three-quar-ters of the pre-war national revenue. The only policy that will meet the ease is one in which caution and economy in rinancial administration go hand in hand with progressive enterprise and well-consid-ered expenditure on development works. The Dominion is so placed that to indulge in risky and extravacant experiments, much more to tolerate conditions making for the dislocation of industry and reduced production, would be inevitably to sacrifice prosperity and create conditions in which war burdens would assume crushing weight.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19191110.2.10
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 39, 10 November 1919, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,077The Dominion. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1919. WAR BURDENS Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 39, 10 November 1919, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.