Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1902. THE COST OF WAR.

Evening Post, Volume LXIII, Issue 87, 12 April 1902, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1902. THE COST OF WAR.

According to a cable message published to-day, the London Standard has given publicity to a rumour that the Chancellor of the Exchequer intends placing on import duty of fivepence per hundredweight on flour and threepence per hundredweight on grain. Such a duty, it is needless to point out, would be Imposed purely for revenue purposes in an extraordinary emergency. Its aim would not be protective, but it might ut the same time slightly benefit the agriculturists of the United Kingdom. The latest returns of imports and exports before us are those for the year 1899. During that year the United Kingdom imported 49,484,318 cwt of wheat and 20,418,708 cwt of wheaten iloui. It also imported 88,159,448 cwt of barley, oats, and maize. The amount of these imports for 1903 would scarcely be less than that of 1899, and the rumoured taxation should bring in as much as- it would have done had it been imposed in 1899. The total duty on wheat at 3d per cwt would have been £618,554, and upon wheaten flour £419,056, making together £1,035,610. If grain had included also barley, oats and maize, another £1,101,993 would have had to bo added, making in all £2,137,603. From these figures it would appear that such taxation as the Standard hints at would produce a little over two millions sterling a year. It is, of course, difficult to say how far the rumour is reliable, but it is plain that a continuance of the war must lead to a broadening of the basis of taxation. The income tax is higher than it has ever been since the first year of its imposition, and produces abbut £30,000,000 of revenue. The classes which contribute to it would have good reason to grumble if tho whole burden of new impositions were laid upon them. To tap the other classes, the Government would have to levy some form of indirect taxation or abolish the present income tax exemptions. The annual budget discloses tho heavy cost the war is causing to the taxpayers of the Old Country, irrespective of the additions being made to the national debt. Last year 2d was auded to the income tax to produce an extra £3,800,000, a duty was laid upon sugar to produce £5,100,000, and an export duty on coal to bring in £2,100,000, an estimated increase of £11,000,000 in total taxation. The taxes for 1900-1901 were about £10,000,000 greater than those fo. 1899--1900, so that those for 1901-1902 must have been about £20,000,000 more than for 1899-1900. There were deficits of £13,882,502 and £63,207,680 in 1899--1900, and 1900-1901 respectively, and an esimated deficit of £41,000,000 for the financial year jußt closed. The deficits

mean increased debt. In face of figures like tliis it is well for New Zealanders who talk glibly of their sacrifices and of fighting to tho bitter end to remember that tho whole of the financial burden, which is very great, falls upon the Old Country. Would New Zealand and it* Premier be equally loyal if this colony had to share that burden upon a population basis? We trust that they would ; but we cannot ignore the fact that they have not yet been put to so severe a test.