IS LENDING PATRIOTIC?

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17199, 20 June 1916, Page 5

IS LENDING PATRIOTIC?

10 TK3 EDITOR. Sir,—No; not at 5 per cent. It is merely what a man with no thought* outside of "self" might be expected to do. 1 agree with your correspondent Mr, Bloomfield that war loans are bad propositions for everyone but the lenders. I go further and propound lihe question: Is interest justifiable V This is not so easily answered as thai other, still, a strong prima facie case) can be made out in the negative. If the affirmative be argued, then a man who amasses £IO.OOO in the year 1 is| able to keep in idle luxury a man iu the year 1901, or a line of descendants to the end of time, for that matter. Surely this is a reduction to absurdity. No, the Government should raise all war funds by taxation. No one who advocates the State taking lives in order to win the war can consistently object to the State taking money for the same purpose. Interest, I believe, is the fruit of monopoly, and equitable laws would abolish monopoly. With equality of opportunity, people would have little need to borrow, and loans, if raised, would be speedily paid back. There should be a time limit placed on interest. If a man owns wealth in the shape of machinery, ships or houses, his income from such will in the course of tirao cease absolutely. If, on the other hand, his wealth is recorded in a bank ledger, the ravages of time are stayed—oven if the ledger wears out a new ono is set up and a fresh entry made. Science haa failed to discover perpetual motion in the physical world, but in th« financial—s per cent ad infinitum! Mr Bloouifield's suggestion to tax land values up to 12d in the £, without exemption, would give equal opportunity to all, would, in short, give to all the full product of their labour. Exploitation would cease, because monopoly would be dead. Many people imagine that land is only, one of many monopolies, but it is the root monopoly, upon which adl others rest. It is-'tibeJ bottom card. In proof of this, a man w ( ho owned the land of a,country could reduce to beggary all its occupanfaL f)f

landlord is " the robber who takes all that h left." Let no one delude him- ' self with the idea that because landownership is not in the.hands of one man. but is spread over (in the case of New Zealand), say, 100,000 people, that tho effect is not the same in principle. A sole owner could do no more (in his own interests) than charge the highest rent possible, just as the present owners of New Zealand, taken collectively, now do. Ido not advocate the immediate imposition of 12d in the £, but I. do say that the principle* I that to the State belongs the whole of the economic rent should be affirmed, and carried to its logical conclusion I just as soon as may be.—l am, etc.,' THE TRUE REMEDY.