The Chronicle LEVIN: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23. 1916. THE CHRISTMAS SEASON; PEACE WAR AND MONEYLENDERS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 23 December 1916, Page 2

The Chronicle LEVIN: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23. 1916. THE CHRISTMAS SEASON; PEACE WAR AND MONEYLENDERS.

The Christ-inns season again is with us; and for the third consecutive time it finds the world at war. "Peace on earth, goodwill towards men" is the 'Christmas mottos, but neither desideratum is in sight. Though there is discussion of peace, the phrases are in terms that fcoeiH to make nugatory the present proposals; and by Latest cabled accounts (generally independable. we must admit) there is possibility that the United States of America will be drawn into the struggle. We fear that a further year ii' not two years of the internecine struggle is before the combatants anr' that at the end of that period all the nutions will be iso crippled financially by the heavy expense—as well as l:y the slaughter—^-that either peace or anarchy must come then. The moneylenders of the world have the intellect to let them see that the lending of money to a nation has a double aspect, for the State always can raise money by taxes. If a lender receives (say) £20,000 per annum ill interest on his principle, and the State lends it to taxes him £10,000. he still has a comfortable margin of profit: but if he lends the £10,000 interest again (plus bis principle), and linds himself assessed (sa'y) £15.000 - taxes against the £25,000 total interest he will receive, promptly he will realise that th-< cud liais come to his chance of further pre fitnblc lending. That. in short-, seems to us to be the true Inwardness ef the reason for the pence proposals put forward this year by Germany ; and for our own empire and our allies the conditions (though doubtless much better) must- be stringent by now. Further, there is no possibility of ourselves- and our friendly supporters tc-

I couping war expenditures from the European Central Nations oven it' I tlio war do ; go on to a stage at which our ene.lilies will be beaten corn- | pletely; they could not discharge even | the present Joad of united debts j within a period of five hundred years if the war were to end to-morrow. If it go oil for another two yeans there will be another ten thousand millions of pounds sterling spent and to be paid. All the belligerents and all their descendants for twenty generations scarcely could discharge all the debt. It is a desperate: remedy against war that soeihs to ensure for the nations its eventual cassation; but unless other counsel's than the present ones prevail soon (on one side or the other or both) we fear that the stage approximating semi-Tumii will be reached, and the modern unlovely prin to of peace —■ the' big financier—will be the intervener. And it is with such thoughts as these we approach our annual duty of wishing all our readiers "A Marry Christmas!" Here in New Zealand only the less fortunate of the people have felt the financial burden, so far; but there "is" an undercurrent of hardships, if not want, apparent here and there amongst the earners of low wages. Fortunately l those better placed have been alive to their duty in t-lio-e matters, and residents in these comparatively fortunate Islands may congratulate themselves upon immunity; from the horrors that spring from a war waged in a people's midst. On the reverse side, of the picture, however, are the etchings on the grounds of a score of battlefields and a thousand skrrmish places done with lethal weapons and with the blood of the manhood of every part of the empire; and it with a sad heart that the people of New Zealand, as of every other part of the world, see the advent of the third consecutive Christmas in -which Great Britain has been at war. We wish our readers—not A Merry Christmas, but a speedy and honorable peace for the world ; feeling sure, as we do, that Germany's present load of debt, plus the intellect of her moneylenders, will provide an effective sa.fe.gn: -id against making by her of further w.n if once peace be declared hetweon the present, belligerents.