PEN POINTS.

Taihape Daily Times, 2 May 1918, Page 3

PEN POINTS.

According to a cable from London the other day, "the Bank of Australasia has declared a dividend of 14 per cent, and a bonus of 12s, equivalent together at 17 per cent." This proves conclusively that "war weariness" has not affected our financial institutions in any way. The New Zealand Government is talking about a compulsory war loan levy on all incomes over £7OOO a year. There is something Charlie Chaplin-like in threatening to force moneyed people to lend their money at a high rate of interest—particular, ly in a country where the mere common people are forced to GIVE their lives.

£720,000,000 in excess profits in the war's first year (1917) —an inconceiv- . able sum, larger than the total money ' cost of the Civil War, wrung from the labour of our fighting and producing class, and from the necessity of our Allies. This will be the enduring monument of the 65th United States Congress, that declared war." —From Amos Pinchot's recent indictment, before Congress, of war profiteering in the United States.

Lord Rhondda, Food Controller, speaking at a "Baby Week" meeting, said that two thousand babies" under twelve months, and three thousand under five months, were lost every week owing to want of knowledge of the necessities of life. Thousands might be saved by cleaner s.~d healthier homes. Better food and greater care by mothers would have prevented the rejection of a million men for the Army since the war began.