The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 1917 LOANS VERSUS TAXATION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 27 August 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 1917 LOANS VERSUS TAXATION.

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

There is no doubting the serious responsibility that now rests upon this community to finance itself through this war period. The demand for money is very real, and Government has no other recourse than to get it either by loan or by taxation. There is no secret or mysterious way of procuring that which is most tangible, Ave have yet to employ just the old-fashioned methods used by States ever since money became the medium of exchange. We have discovered nothing to supercede the levy or tax and the 'loan. The well-to-do, or rich, favour the war loan, the poor favour direct taxation simply because they have not the means of paying an indirect tax that would raise the money needed, and it would therefore, have to be paid by those who have without interest. We endeavour to tax the individual, and we do succeed in exacting from the poor a greater proportion of money needed by the State than they are really able to pay and keep healthy. It is an astounding fact that by our free use of indirect taxation, we frequently find positions in which the State is doling out charitable aid with one hand and demanding it back with the other as taxes. We endeavour to throw the load of taxation as far as we can upon those who are less able to bear it, and when sufficient is not forthcoming by this indirect method we set about taxing incomes and property. This demonstrates that it is not the person that should be taxed but the wealth he possesses. It is no use the rich man howling out against taxation; a moment's thought will convince him that it is futile to tax where there is nothing to tax, and yet in his thoughtlessness he will avoid taxation as long as possible by taxing the clothing, food, mod'ia&ne 'and everything Consumed or used by recipients of charitable aid and those who it is the duty of the State to keep, rather than realise at once that it is obviously wrong to tax the individual and that it is wealth that should keep the State machinery going. Being thrown on to its-own resources to furnish the money necessary to conduct its own affairs, and to take its place in the war, the

State finds that it lias to adopt the inevitable and tax wealth, it is still adding to the cost of living of the poor by increasing customs duties, but, in | the main, it is wealth that is the target of the Minister of Finance. Wealthy men in Parliament have for many weeks been arguing against paying the taxes, which we consider are most favourable to the rich, proposed by the Minister, because they are direct taxes and affect their land and incomes. There are others in the House who have been justly contending that wealth must find the money | needed for war and for the business of the State, because it is obviously futile to attempt to get it anywhere else The rich say get the money by I'oan rather than by taxation and they strive for the highest rate of interest forgetting that wealth will eventually have to pay that interest, and may have to be taxed to find it. There I are some in Parlliament, and out of I it, who are opposed to both taxation . and loan; their position is not very [ clear, for, seeing that borrowing from other countries is no longer practicable or possible, they do not state, or seem to know how they would conduct the business of the country, or finance the war. These men are neither the i < friends of labour or anyone else; legitimate labour, as distinct from men of the 1.W..W. ilik, is discreet, just and farseeing. These fanatics may be under impression that there arc means of getting money not known to any but themselves and Germany; they cry out against loans, against taxation of an indirect class, but they do not in-, dicate where the very urgently wanted money is coming from. They speciously blatherskite about granting bigger pensions to soldiers, increased pay and more adequate allowance to dependents, and yet they are against loans and taxation. It' is simply this: they would just confiscate every shilling and everything owned by others and live upon it, but when what they had stolen was gone, what then? We have just .waded through the alphabet of the question merely to show how ab-

surd it would be in the interests of both rich and poor to adopt any other system of financing our country than that put forward by the Minister of Finance. We may 'consider indirect taxation rather overdone, but that is a trifling matter at this most serious crisis in our Empire's history. In raising the money we need by loan neither rich or poor are made to suffer; nothing is being requisitioned or confiscated, and we venture to think that those who have money wiSl realise the wisdom and fairness of methods of raising the money needed, and that they will render our Liberty Loan an unqualified success by subscribing all they can possibly afford to it. Money can only come from where there is money, therefore it is plain the loan has to be subscribed by the wealthy. Subscription by poorer peoplfe is assurred, for in small sums they have already provided about half-a-million. 'At a crisis like this wealth must realise what are its obvious responsibilities, duties which cannot be shirked because there is nowhere eltee from whence the money can be got. The time for receiving subscriptions to the loan is growing short, next Monday—3rd September I —being the last day. Difficulties causing delay only increase the cost and create need for still more money.