COMPULSORY CONTRIBUTION TO WAR LOAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1817, 23 April 1918, Page 2

COMPULSORY CONTRIBUTION TO WAR LOAN.

THOSE who are perplexed by the idea of receiving by personal letter from the Commissioner of Taxes notification of the sums they are expected to contribute to the war loan may console themselves with the knowledge that such delicate little attentions were once common in England, writes “Mercuito” in tlm Auckland Herald. True, it is three centuries since this form of State finance was abandoned, but if the Commissioner cares to go back as far he will find a model method of enforcing his extensive powers. James 1., in his Letters of Privy Seal, issued in 1604, puts the request as nicely as it could well be put. He addressed his subjects as “trustie and well-beloved, ” and tearfully expressed his unwillingness to throw any burden upon them, “Yel,” he proceeded, “such is our estate at this time in regarde of great and urgent occasions falne and growing daily upon us (in no sort to be eschewed) as we shall be forced presently to disburse greater summes of money than it is possible for us to provide by any ordinary means, or to wait without great prejudice, in which consideration . . We think it needless to use any more arguments from such a King to such- subjects. But that as our ntmessite is the only cause -of our request, so your love and duety must be the chiefe motive of your ready performance of the same. . . . . That which we require, therefore, is within twelve dayes after the receipt hereof, you Mill

cause the summe of to be delivered to whom we have appointed to be our collector in our couutie of .” It has to be said, however, that James I. had a habit of paying no interest on these forced loans raised with such excessive politeness. We have, after all, made some advance in the course of three centuries.