FUNDS FOR WORK

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 71, 20 September 1930, Page 13

FUNDS FOR WORK

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —In discussing financial matters the leaders of Socialist and "Labour" stand convicted of either gross ignorance of fact or incitement of "class feeling amongst their followers. In a Socialist Labour paper circulating in the Dominion we have read some slighting conipients on Sir Otto Niemeyer, obviously with no other intention than to rouse ill-feeling against the Socialist bug-bear known as "the Capitalist." Here is one quotation referring to Sir Otto: "As a banker his primary concern is to fasten the interest on Great Britain's war debt permanently on the backs of the people-^and when ho talks of industrial difficulties without mentioning either the war debt or tlie taxation it involves lie is ,simply misleading the people." A moment's thought would show that the war debt is money borrowed from the people as a whole, and it is the people who receive that interest in return for having entrusted their savings to the State. To pay the people interest on their invested savings is not '"saddling them with this interest." If it was repudiated millions of small investors would suffer—official returns in 1927 show that in England at least 15,000,000 small investors own no less than £777,830,000 giltedged securities in England, and war loans are treated as such securities. Then, again, banks, friendly societies, and other organisations are large holders of war bonds.

Who own the bulk of the capital in such concerns? Again' {he small investor, or capitalist, drawn from the salaried and wage-earning classes. In banks the average holding is under £220 shares. In friendly societies the average is under £50, in other concerns the average is about £300. Those who attempt to inflame class feeling by representing the investors in public loans or war bonds as 'grasping moneylenders, should know that this money is not held by big capitalists. They must know perfectly well that the money was borrowed to help the country to carry on, yet they talk and write as if the big moneyed interests had forced the ; cost on the people and are now "saddling them with the interest." Even if the banks and other concerns did take up these loans, they did so on behalf of their sharehold-

ers and members who are small investors. The most superficial inquiry would show thorn the untruth contained in their expressed views. As a matter of fact the distress which would be caused in the homes of the people by a repudiation ot interest would be terrible. In New Zealand the number of war bonds subscribed for by the salaried ar.d wage-earning sections of the people must be very considerable. Is payment of interest to these people to be condemned?—We are, etc.,

N.Z. WELFARE LEAGUE.

10th September