COMPULSORY LOANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 78, 28 September 1940, Page 10

COMPULSORY LOANS

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Now that the Minister of Finance has published the terms of the compulsory loan (it is merely quibbling to call it anything else) the unfairness of the whole position becomes evident. The Minister states that it is intended that everyone should contribute but this statement cannot be borne out. The latest figures available from the New Zealand Official Year Book show that persons receiving total incomes up to £600 per annum, which would approximate the income producing the £50 to which the Minister grants \ exemption, total 166,928. Those receiving total incomes in a higher * class total 21,121, from which it is seen that for every nine persons in the community in receipt of income eight are not required to contribute while the ninth is; and yet the Minister talks of a universal contribution. Again, many people have stinted and denied themselves severely before the terms of this loan were announced in order to contribute loans interest free for the period of the war. Many of these persons have since then had their incomes drastically reduced by impprt restrictions, and they will be still further reduced in the future. Apart from the fact that these people will be forced to contribute on a basis calculated when times were much better and contribute out of reduced income, there is the fact that their self-denying contribution is of no benefit to them unless they will agree to convert it to a 13-year loan, the first 3 years returning no interest, and having very low market value. Many such people will find this an impossibility. Finally, as to the statement that the loan is required for the war. The last Budget provided £35,000,000 for war purposes, and £65,000,000 for domestic purposes. Surely the obvious thing to do if £8,000,000 is required is to deduct from the £65,000,000 and avoid any compulsory loan and accentuation of dictatorial legislation.—l am, etc., FREEDOM.