MONEY-FROM WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1810, 6 April 1918, Page 1

MONEY-FROM WAR.

POINTS POE CONSIDERATION,

BOLDINS NEW ZEALAND’S END

By the 31st March last (six days ago) the Imperial Government had bought and paid for £60,000,000 worth of New Zealand produce. In round figures, this in the main consisted of the following: —Greasy wool, £23,370,000; freezing companies’ slipe wool, and sheep skins and hides, £3,000,000; meat, £22,900,000; cheese, £7,400,000; butter, £2,250,000; other purchases, including scheelite, dried milk, condensed milk, make the total sum up to approximately £60,000,000 of money. That money has been spread over the whole country. Wherever the produce has come from, there the money has gone. Producers not Only received war prices for what they exported, but also for what they sold locally, prices being brought more or less into line. For example; Local mills paid more for wool, as the export price was raised 55 per cent. Having bought the produce, it was the Imperial Government’s concern to get it Home, hence it provided the ships; and if it could not obtain them just when it wanted them, it paid storage on the goods in New Zealand —a mighty bill, it will be found, when all is settled up. In taking the produce, paying for it practically cash down, and making all arrangements to ship it Home, the Imperial Government relieved producers of responsibilities which they could never otherwise have undertaken. New Zealand’s end has been firmly help up by the Imperial Government; for, without such arrangements, what could the producer have done? Tallow, pelts, flax, and other “uncommandeered” produce supply the answer. They are all good value, but for want of ships cannot be got to the British market with expedition, and therefore, cannot be realised on there. But the purchase of his wool, butter, meat, or cheese, or whatever he has to sell, is not the greatest, thing the Imperial Government has done for the producer; It is defending him as well; ensuring him peace and security while he produces, Thanks to the British Navy and 13,000 intervening miles of blue water, the Germans are not giving the New Zealand producer something more to do than to produce. Thanks also to the British Imperial Army, including our own brave New Zealand lads, New Zealand’s end is being held up on the bloody Western front, instead of in this country. Let the producer and all who are associated with him —the labouring, professional, commercial, Civil Service classes —imagine how New Zealand’s end would he held up if (1) The producer had to get his produce to markets as best he could; (2) if he had to hold it, bear all the freight and storage charges, and pay insurance premiums; (3) if, by reason of diversion of tonnage to sources of supply nearer Britain, he were unable to send his produce out of the country at all. And now let the New Zealand producer, whose wool, butter, meat, and cheese have been requisitioned, asked himself who is enabling him to receive these enhanced prices? The mile-long hungry queues outside. British shops furnish an answer; the attenuated British dietry scale furnishes an answer ;and the gallant, lads from this country, from Canada, from Australia, and every country in England, Scotland and Ire-

/land, and Wales, furnish the most eloquent answer of all. Who held up the financial end of the Allies and the Dominions as well as its own when war broke out? The British people. Who will hold it up in any event, by drastic taxation and loan measures? The British public. Is it not a fair thing, then, seeing that the'weight has grown so heavy with the years of war, that the Dominions should do all they can to hold up their war financial end? The Dominion Government has recognised that, it is.; It asked for the war two years ago £8,000,000, and received from the country £12,000,000; again it asked, last August for £12,000,000, and it received £16,000,000. And now it is asking for £9,500,000. What is to be the response? The money is. not. asked “for keeps,” but as a loan —and a loan on liberal terms, with the Dominion itself! as security. “Holding your own end up” accurately describes the request of the British Government to New Zealand in respect to war finance, and the reply of the Dominion Government is, “We will.” Producers are specially asked to come forward in this matter, because they have primarily benefited by the high returns they have received. What Mr W. M. Hughes said to Australian producers applies to those of New Zealand: — “Unless the British Government had been prevailed upon to take our produce we are down and out.” Producers and all classes of the community, as individuals or as corporations, are in any case bound by law to subscribe to this £9,500,000 loan; but the better way, the more honourable, more manly way, is to do so voluntarily. Criticising the thoughtless, extravagant, improvident, or mean is useless, because it will not add £1 to the loan. Criticism is only logical after subscription. Producers and others read this from the British Prime Minister, his New Year message, and think and act upon it, before Monday week, when subscription to the £9,500,000 loan closes: — “No sacrifice that we who stay athome are called to make can tie equal or faintly approach what is daily and hourly demanded of the men in the trenches. So long as they are called up(m to endure these things let us see to it that we do not take our ease at the price of their sacrifice. There is nobody too old or too young or too feeble to play a part. If we cannot fight in person, we can fight by the vigour and goodwill by which we do our work, the wisdom of *our economy, the generosity with which we meet the nation’s financial needs. At the moment lending and saving are specially important. Money is essential to victory and economy is the condition of financial power.”— : Post