PAYING FOR THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3330, 7 November 1919, Page 2

PAYING FOR THE WAR.

FRENCH LOTTERY SCHEMES‘

FINANCIER’S NOVEL BILL.

In View of the heavy deficit in the

French Budget and the imperative necd_ for raising money to meet the llol'mous charges arising out of the war, the notion that the end in View could -be best achieved by the organisation of a colossal lottery is steadily gaining ground in‘ France.

Two propositions for State IOU~<3I‘iCS wiere laid before the Chamber some Wceks ago,_ the amount involved in one proposal “being £1,20~0,000,000 sterling, and in the other £4,000,00,000. The authors of these proposals, however, were deputies who have no claim to expert. knowledge of finance. The question has now been taken up by M_ Andre Lefevre, who shares with MM. de Monzie and Raoul Perot the reputation of being one of the soundest financial authorities in the Chamber. M. Lefevre has brml_'«;ht forward a Bill to raise £2,<l00,00),000 by means of a lottery. This, he proposes, should take the form of an issue of 120,000,000 ‘bonds of £2O each. These bonds would yield no interest, but would be redeemable at par by halfyearly drawings covofing a period of twenty years. Thus the scheme really amounts to a loan without interest. In order to conipr-‘u~3a.‘te for non-payment of interest, it is proposed that in addition to the redemp‘..ion drawings referred to there should be a series of very substantial prizes which would be dx-awn for in a manner adopted under the premium bond systein_ ' n

~ The Bill proposes that for rhe first two years there should be -.1 daily drawing for a prize of 1,250,009 1"-raiies, or £50,000, and that in add’-_tion the-re ‘st.-ruld be two week.'.v prizes of ;!.'E‘O,000 anl ten of £4{h)'). After the first. ftwo years it is proposed that the ‘drawing for the 4’.’.50,1.'»00 prize shauld ybe weekly instead of daily. ‘ I Such a plan, it is Ill“g‘€d__ wnuld (Ilable the State to escape the heavy annual interest on charges involvd by national loans or the ordinary kind, and Would place the Treasury in immediate possession of an enormous sum of ready money. An ordinary loan issued at :15 per cellt. discount, 1-cdeeniafble at par and yielding, say, 4 per cent. interest for 26 years, it is pointed out, is a ruinous method of ‘raising money, as it really re:su'!.ts in the State having to pay something like £220 for a loan of £IOO. The advocates of this particular lottery system urge that it off£‘l's_; a middle course between a costly lc.-an of the type hitherto in vogue and a heavy tax on capital, and they emphasise the fact that although lottery loan bonds carry no interest, they are redeemable at par, whereas a. capital levy would be equivalent to absolute confiscation of the amount taken by the State.