The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 4, 1915. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1369, 4 March 1915, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 4, 1915. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Tmc Imperial Government has hinted that colonial State grants to the Belgian Relief Commission’s appeal must remain in abeyance. As the Post rightly points out, “it would certainly appear anomalous for the Foreign Office to sanction our State subvention and to withdraw its own.” Up to Tuesday, the evidence was that the Foreign Office, while refusing to grant State aid to the Commission because of German pecuniary exactions, did not wish to discourage private subscriptions ; but nothing was said for or against subventions by colonial Governments. Nor is the reply of the Secretary for the Colonies imperative upon the point—the reason being that the Imperial authorities, with their usual tact, do not care to adopt an imperative attitude to a Dominion Government —but iuterenlially it makes It clear that a daughter State should not do a thing that the Mother Country sees military reasons for refraining from doing. The Secretary for the Colonies repeats that “direct subsidising trom funds of His Majesty’s Government must remain in abeyance,” and that the Belgian Commission’s Australasian appeal “is presumably not an appeal for Government subsidy, but for private subscriptions, similar to the appeal issued throughout the world.” His Majesty’s Government is “maintaining a generally favourable altitude to the Commission’s work” —which means that private subscriptions are not out of order; and, moreover, “the Commission’s imports into Belgium have been ; and are, reaching the civil population.” Thus the point on which private subscribers specially wished to he informed is the subject of a satisfactory answer. Individual benevolence to the suffering Belgians may proceed. State grants, in the light of the message from the Secretary for the colonies, must remain in abeyance. At the local public meeting held the other evening it was decided to hold up any local effort until it was ascertained what the Government intended to do. It is now clear that the only way to afford immediate relief to the Belgians is by voluntary giving, and the local public can now set machinery in motion to that end.

A wak tax to meet the Dominion's expenditure is not only inevitable, but imperative. The Minister for Finance made a public announcement to this effect on Tuesday. He said : "It simply means the imposition of further taxaliou —in short, a war lax, to meet the increased expenditure and loss of revenue. The people know it must come, and that the country cannot get along without it." Mr Allen explained that this is a time when the State has to face an increasing expenditure with a declining revenue. New Zealand’s productive power continues to be good, and the country is as solid as ever, but the war has made an appreciable difference to numbers of homes. Some kinds of enterprise, for which capital is easily available in normal times, are in a less advantageous position to day. Fuuds are not as riuid as they were, and the restrictions on credit have a narrowing effect on some avenues of employment. The Government is confident that it will be able to obtain In London all the money needed here for public purposes, but British capital for private investment overseas will necessarily shrink during the war period. There will be a difference of opinion as to the incidence of taxation and while there is every reason to believe that a turn of the screw will be applied to laud aud income, and that it is desirable to leave the necessaries of life out of the taxation scheme, yet the man of small means cannot hope to escape from bearing his proportionate share of the burden.