The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1918 MONEY FOR WAR PURPOSES.

Taihape Daily Times, 13 February 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1918 MONEY FOR WAR PURPOSES.

(With which is, incorporated The Tai tape ; Post and Waimarino Nows).

Settlers generally, men with money, capitalists in all the varying degrees down to the man or woman who has only a few pounds to invest, are to be given another opportunity next month, of demonstrating to critics and cavillers the hollowness of the cry for the conscription of wealth. Parliament authorised the raising of twenty-eight millions purely for war purposes. a balance of some nine or ten millions of that authorisation to be raised,' and the Minister of Finance has made it clear that this balance Is to be offered for subscription within a very few weeks. We think the ready response to the country’s needs for money wherewith to prosecute the war, to fill honourably and independently its place in the Empire which Germany was determined to cripple, enslave and destroy before all others, is a complete answer to advocates for the conscription of money. Certainly, the most ardent supporters of wealthconscription had no tolerably clear idea of where it was to begin or end; of what the minimum of a man’s possessions should be. If one had ten thousand pounds worth of land and another five thousand pounds to work it, another having no land would be entitled to hold a similar sum; the law could not differentiate to leave one with twenty thousand and strip another down to five thousand, or was it intended to reduce everyone to a financial dead level? We were not too optimistic about the twenty-eight million loan authorisation; it seemed too long and precipitous a financial road for this young country to negotiate, but it appeared far more free from pitfalls and dangers than even a , partial attempt at conscription. The performance of financial hill-climbing put up by the possessors and custodians of the country’s wealth has completely killed the conscriptionist campaign, and there is the utmost cause for anticipating another triumph of voluntary contribution. This country’s finances, despite the blundering in a Department over which the Minister of Finance has no control of expenditure, arc in a wonderfully satisfactory condition, and the Minister is entitled to the Dominion’s thanks and congratulations for the frictionless course he took and the methods he adopted to find the huge sum required for doing our part in the war To have conscripted would have entailed a huge force of clerks, collectors, spies, assessors and appraisers, who would have pryed into everyone’s private affairs, for one’s word is never taken that he is not taxable or has nothing to conscript. The

thought opens up such a vista of muddle, inefficiency and squabbling; or hardships and privileges, that one is thankful that the conscription of wealth ide a was allowed to die out. Money has been kept at work making money, production has not been hampered and it is undeniable that this keeping of money in use by fhe legitimate owners and custodians of It until the State had need of it, has proved the most economical and frictionless road through our unprecedented financial requirements. In whatever form the balance of the nine or ten' millions is offered it will, of course, be understood that it is not a new loan authorisation. The popularity of Government securities is shown by Sir Joseph Ward’s statement that War Certificates arc still freely being taken up. This war has led to a view of the possibility of New Zealand becoming, at once, entirely self-reliant. Despite the millions invested in the war loans there is no shortage of

money, in fact, the Indications arc that capitalists and financial institutions realise that a preponderance of advantages would accrue to the whole body politic, to every section of the community, by a cessation of the huge flow of this country’s earnings in Interest on loans to London. It has been demonstrated that New Zealand Is a financial grown-up; that it no longer has need of financial leadingstrings; that it produces ample for its own requirements, and that it need no longer draw financial sustenance from its parent country. It has real occasion to he proud of its financial manhood; it has more than begun to realise its responsibilities towards asserting its self-reliance, and there Is not only the money available for the nine or ten million war loan issue, but also for many millions more thar, will, in all probability, be required. If the land settlement policy of the Government were half as satisfactory as Sir Joseph Ward’s finance there need be no qualms about crushing conditions coming as a result of the war. The people of the Taihape district contributed satisfactorily in a general way to previous war issues; there were some who seemingly did not <?o their duty by helping the country, which by its generous laws allows them to amass money, to the extent they should have done, but there war

have been some contributing cause for this known only to the men themselves. These loans provide, investment which is beyond any question of safety, interest offered is distinctly high for such security Money invested therein is no longer a source of worry, and the, investor has no qualms of conscience about having done his duty, nor can he be used by wealth-conscriptiomsts as a lever in support of their contentions. Taihape has given second to none to patriotic funds, and it will invest patriotically second to none in the country’s. “Win the War Loans.”