"WIN THE WAR!"

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 40, 16 August 1917, Page 6

"WIN THE WAR!"

To- all but the wilfully shortsighted the magnitude of the task of meeting New Zealand's cost of tlie war is sufficiently apparent. Never has a greater obligation been entered into by this country at any period of its history, and it must not be forgotten that money-cost of the war to New Zealand is as nothing compared with the cost of human lives, the best lives the country could give. The Government's methods of raising the money urgently required for direct and indirect war purposes are rightly fit subjects for constructive criticism—always providing that the alternative is demonstrably superior to the proposal. Up to the present the Government, through its Financial Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, has shown itself amenable to reason in its practical abandonment of the excess pro"fits tax. But this fact, as Sir Joseph Ward eloquently expressed it, stands out for all to see: "We have to get a huge sum of money; and we are bound to get it, if we are to carry on our share in the war." That, in the fewest words possible, describes the situation facing the Dominion to-day. The present is no time for captious criticism, no time for intrusion of class-interest, but for loyal, unselfish, national assistance, in the presence of the enemy. The thousands of young men who left New Zealand and went into battle were inspired by but one single thought—"to win the war." Their example is commended aa much to our lawmakers as to those for whom they make the lams.