Raids on Capital

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 17

Raids on Capital

“Present trade is the result of past savings, and future trade will be the result of present savings. But this simple statement is only a part of the , truth. Savings by themselves will not achieve their purpose unless they- take shape as investment in new enterprises. If taxes are heavy, not only will less money be saved but its investment will tend to be directed away from new and adventurous forms of enterprise, to be confined to '“safe investment” and i mortgages on the fruits of past comi mercial adventure. Present taxation hits the largest investors hardest, leaving them with neither the funds to invest nor the incentive to venture as boldly as they did in the decades before the war. “It is not enough to reply that capital will always be forthcoming for any reasonable project; that is a truism, but it does not meet the reality. The capital required for such ventures as the 'ebnsfructidn of American and"'’ Canadian railroads, the formation of Sudan cotton plantations, the making of railways in India, the creation of rubber plantations in Malaya, was provided by the speculative foresight and the willingness to take risks displayed by rich men.”—“The Round Table.”