The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1917. THE BRITISH WAR LOAN.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 18 January 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1917. THE BRITISH WAR LOAN.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

To read how the money is teeming in for investment in the latest British War Loan makes one marvel. There seems to be little need for conscription of wealth in Britain, whatever there may he in other parts of the Empire. This war lias proved a mul-ti-record breaker, and none of its new records will. evoke more amazement than its cost, and the readiness with which the British people voluntarily found the money. It is the most expensive undertaking yet known to the world, and nothing we read of in history has ever induced men and institutions to pour their savings into the national exchequer in a way thai is now being experienced. High must be the spirits and great must be (ho confidence of the people at Home re- j specting the attainment of early victory. It was only necessary to announce this great loan, and there was an unprecedented rush of gold, and a steady stream has been continuously flowing into the banks up to the present minute, with no signs of abatement. We cast our eyes over to Ger- | many and we see the half-starved, despondent looking people passing in their scraps of paper-money redeemable only by a bankrupt nation. No stronger and truer evidence of the real war situation can be given. British newspapers are urging poor people to invest their savings by saying that Germany has beaten Britain in one respect only, and that is in the greater number of small investors, but then we must look at what is being invested. In Germany it is scraps of paper that are not even convertible into food to only a very limited extent, while in Britain it is the metal currency of the nation that is convertible at its face value in any part of the world. Behind one is a bankrupt treasury, behind the other are the banks of ail notions. In nothing does Britain show her determination to end the vicious eircle that involves an enormously increasing expenditure in the upkeep of war conditions than in the freedom and enthusiasm with which her people aro pouring in their money. The insane squandering of public funds for unproductive purposes has for years resulted in a lamentable lack of resources for social-political work and progress, and the people of Britain are now evincing a determination that this ever-recurring, ever-increasing waste must stop or be largely curtailed. The wasteful and disastrous competition in hostile preparedness must stop; what was Utopian in 1914

is within measurable distance of attainment in 1917. Before the war we looked forward to the future with fear and misgiving, to-day the people of B'ritain are enthusiastically pouring in their money, confident of a bright and peaceful future. With a reorganised trade that has hundreds of newavenues opened to it, they will in a few short years redeem the sacrifices now being made; they will work in conditions of content and happiness, knowing that the bogey of war has been met and killed outright; they are conscious of the resources of the Empire to which they belong, and know that their contributions towards laying the Hohenzollern menace is nothing more than casting their bread upon waters that will return it to them in the not distant future. No single country could arrest the growth and progress of armaments, and no one country could reduce its expenditure. Just before the war Britain's annual expenditure on her Army and Navy was somewhere within the region of one -hundred millions. If the elimination of Germany in the race results in lessening that by one-quarter even, it will be a gratifying relief, but there is no reason why it should not bring about a world understanding for an international combination for policing the world that would result in far great er savings. In New Zealand we have made no sacrifice except that supreme sacrifice that the whole Empire has shared in. We have given the flower of our manhood, and the human stream is still flowing from our shores to the scene of conflict at a rate that is depressing. Otherwise, unlike our people at Home, we have benefitted; we have made no sacrifices to speak of. We are fearful of contributing to war loans lest we should run short to buy land and luxuries, while our friends and countrymen in Britain are pouring in their savings, piling up hundreds of millions with which to win for us peace and freedom. Have we yet learned the full meaning of those two words?