BUY LIBERTY BONDS!

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 222, 18 September 1919, Page 7

BUY LIBERTY BONDS!

LOAN CLOSES IN A WEEK.

AUCKLAND SAVINGS BANK

TAKES £100,000. -INVESTORS AND THEIR DUTY. HOW GOES THE VICTORY LOAN! It is hard to say just yet, for several reasons, but everybody seems to think that by closing day (Thursday next) the £10,000,000 bond issue will almost certainly be ober-subscribed.

I Definite information cannot be got, because the Government issues no progress reports, and large investors are hanging back till the last moment because no interest is payable in the ordinary way before closing date. Thus even the bankers can only hazard a guess as to what the result'will be. Still, those who know predict that the money will undoubtedly come In. A really splendid lead has been given to the public by the Auckland Savings Bank, which has subscribed £100,000. The bank has a fine war loan record of £850,000, and its total holding of Gevernment debentures is over £1,000,000. In the interval between the last war loan and the present one it took up £70,000 in war bonds.

'It is a patriotic duty to subscribe," ! said one financeir who was asked about it to-day. "We must look at it this way. The money must be got somehow, now or later. The debt has been contracted, and we have got to pay it. If we fail now we shall have to pay later on. The Government has compulsory powers, and I know that it means to use them, 'it is quite right that it should. I know really wealthy people, folks with capital running ixito hundreds of thousands, who have notjsubscribed a penny to any war loan, and I know others who have subscribed very little. Such people ought to be brought in. They have the choice. If they come in now they will be called on to subscribe three times the amount of their income tax; if they wait, they ■will have to subscribe double the amount, and then they will get only three per cent upon it. "I say it is a patriotic duty," he went on. "New Zealand's profits from tha ! war are enough to pay the whole of her war bill. With the exception of Canada, ■we are in a better position than any I part of the Empire. It is a simple fact that the war has in cash cost us nothing. Therefore we should subscribe all wo possibly can to this war loan. If we fail it only means that we shall be compelled to subscribe later on."

As far as can be gathered, the terms of the loan are likely to prove very attractive to large investors. The income tax exemption, which has been so much criticised in point of principle, is calculated to make the bonds worth 6J per cent to persons and companies paying 7/6 in the pound in land and income tax. The record banking returns show that there is a huge amount of capital awaiting investment, and some of the large ordinary channels of investment are closed. There is a growing feeling that the Government is really determined to round up the principal slackers, of whom some bad examples are still believed to exist. I It may be pointed out that everybody is required to subscribe three times hjrs land and income tax to this loan, no matter what he may have put into earlier loans. Local financiers say, however, that in cases of hardship investors can safely rely on getting fair treatment from the Commissioner, who is given a wide discretion in dealing with individual cases.

So far there has not been a heavy extra demand for post office war loan certificates and short-dated bonds on account of the present loan campaign. These securities have been selling steadily for a long time, and the lack of additional business is not remarkable. However, tbe officials expect to sell many more than usual during the next week.