Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1943. THE £35,000,000 WAR LOAN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1943. THE £35,000,000 WAR LOAN.

JIIIS week the people of New Zealand are called upon to make an active beginning on a financial effort ranking as the greatest of its kind ever demanded of them. The amount to be raised in the Third Liberty Loan which opens formally toihorrow (although advance subscriptions are already well in advance of £4,0'00,000) is £35,000,000. Not very long ago, the raising of a loan of this magnitude in a country of our comparatively small population probably would have been regarded as a flat impossibility, but last year we raised nearly two and a half times the amount of this loan in taxation. In. stress of war we are learning that many things are practicable which in easier and less troubled days would have been denied serious consideration.

Few words should be needed to recommend the Third Liberty Loan to the support of all who, at some present sacrifive, can subscribe. If the Avar is to b'e fought oil. to victory hiid to the unconditional surrender of the enemy to which the United Nations are pledged, the financial sinews of wal* must be provided in full aud ample measure. If they were not so provided our fighting forces would be erippled and their efforts made vain. Such an act of treason and desertion no doubt is unthinkable.

The loan offers as safe and secure an investment as can now anywhere be obtained and this at fair rates of interest. The subscription or over-subscription of the loan will help very materially to ensure and guarantee the only conditions in which any investment or property holding can be safeguarded.

One great point to be made —a. point to be pondered-Tiy those who have not hitherto been in the habit of subscribing to war loans —is that if this loan is to serve its purpose as effectively as possible it’must be supported by a very large number of small subscribers. The provision. of a substantial part of the amount required in small subscriptions drawn from savings will not only be a valuable aid to winning the Avar, but will help materially to cheek inflation.

There appears to be no good reason why the greatest number of subscribers to any preceding war loan in this country —upwards of 30,000 —should not be multiplied several times in the case of the Third Liberty Loan. It is wholly in the national interest, and in that of the economic welfare of individuals throughout the community, that the number of subscribers should be increased and the loan built Up to the greatest extent that is possible by the investment of small savings.

It is and will be far more advantageous to all concerned that small savings should thus be applied directly to the prosecution of the war than that they should be held in other ways—for example in savings bank deposits. It is true that a proportion of these deposits will in any case be invested in Avar loan stock, but another proportion will not. Some of the funds must be held available to meet withdrawals. Where the money is invested directly in. a war loan there is ah assurance that it will not be withdrawn and spent, with inflationary effect, on a market depleted of goods. It is a matter simply of refraining for the time being from using the purchasing power represented by savings. On the other hand, savings can be built up just as advantageously by investment in war loan stock as if they were lodged'in a savings bank and left undisturbed.