Proposed Rating for War Funds.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16218, 22 May 1918, Page 6

Proposed Rating for War Funds.

The suggestion made at tho last meeting of the City Council that a rate should bo struck for the benefit of tho various war funds is open to serious exception, especially at this stago of tho war. Had some such, method been adopted in tho first instance, thero would havo been more to bo said in its favour. It is true thero are a number of skinflints iuid curmudgeons in the community who have subscribed to no fund .connected with tho war, or, indeed, to any other public object, and who will not subscribe unless they are compelled to do so. We Can sympathise with the desire to make such persons contributo something by means of a compulsory levy. It must be remembered, however, that a rato will also fall upon the persons who have subscribed to the best of their ability since the opening of the war, «and also upon ratepayers in poor circumstances, who already have a difficulty in making both, ends meet. In the first year or two of the war, tbo general taxation for wan purposes was light, and most people with any patriotic feeling felt impelled to contributo what they could to the voluntary war subscriptions. Not a few gavo more than they were called upon to pay m taxes. Now, however, the land tax and income-tax have reach, ed quite a respectable figure, and the compulsory contribution to the War Loan is going to prove a somewhat serious financial problem to many persons who have been generous supporters of various philanthropic funds in the past. Under tho new Act they aro not able to offset tlio contributions they havo made either to previous loans or to the various war funds, it will be decidedly a piece of injustice if those public-spirited persons are now to be subjected to a municipal rate for warfund purposes, in order that the skinflints and curmudgeons aforesaid may be compelled to disgorge something in aid of carrying on the war. Finally, wo fear, the levying of such a rate would go far towards killing tho spirit of giving which has been so creditable to New Zealanders as a whole during the war. Wo do not wish to see all philanthropic and patriotic effort reduced to an affair of State or municipal organisation and compulsion.