£75 PER HEAD

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3279, 23 June 1943, Page 8

£75 PER HEAD

THIRD LIBERTY LOAN TASK FOR WAGE EARNERS DANGERS OF INFLATION The objective of the 3rd. Liberty Loan is equal to an investment of £25 per head from every man, woman and child in the Dominion. We cannot expect our fighting men to pay as well as fight nor will babies in arms become subscribers so if these classes are eliminated it means a call for £75 per head from those living safely, though working hard, on the home front. This is the war’s fourth year and as modern war, highly mechanised, is highly expensive much of our cash has gone into previous loans. Now we are at the point when we must save from week to week and sacrifice to save to finance the high pace of warfare. “But there are millions on deposit in the banks,” someone can retort and that, states the National War Loan ■Committee, is quite true. Some of these millions are “resting balances,” an enforced resting because business people with almost empty shelves must be ready to stock up when the seas are safer, imports can arrive in greater quantities and the great output of our own workers in industry can be turned from the present, consuming channel which runs right into the firing line. The Liberty Loan will make a heavy call on the credits of bank depositors but this source must not be the only one to answer the patriotic call. The weekly release of purchasing power cannot find a full outlet to-day because goods are scarce. Plunge any part of those “resting balances” as well as current wages into the shopping competition and prices would get completely out of hand. Inflation, cruellest in its effect on the wage earner would be rampant in defiance of stabilisation schemes and the economic dam would burst, causing a train of misery so it is vitally necessary for the wage earners’ economic security that surplus purchasing power should not pile up behind the dam. It can ■be safely stored in the reservoir of the 3rd. Liberty Loan and the money used when women can again shop with pleasure.