COMPULSION OF WEALTH.

Taihape Daily Times, 21 March 1918, Page 4

COMPULSION OF WEALTH.

A London correspondent states that the New Zealand proposal to compel capitalists to subscribe to the war loan in proportion to the amount of their income tax has created a good deal of interest in financial circles in Great Britain. It has been loosely described as "Conscription of Capital," and Mr. Harold Cox takes the "Times" to task for the heading "Capital Conscription Experiment," under which they print a letter from their New Zealand correspondent on the last local loan. Mr. Cox points out that this heading is quite misleading inasmuch as the text shows that the New Zealand experiment is not a conscription of capital at all, but a scheme for compelling people with large incomes to convert a portion of these incomes into capital bearing a fixed rate of interest, or alternatively to pay an increased income tax. This, he points out, "is the very reverse of the proposal which Mr. Bonar Law advocates." The Liverpool Daily Courier remarks that the New Zealand proposal "is certainly the least objectionable form of conscription of wealth yet mooted, and has something to commend it if it were confined to those people who have refused ( to lend their money to the State."