COST OF COMPENSATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18042, 8 March 1919, Page 10

COST OF COMPENSATION.

TO THE KDITOB. Sir, —Thanks for giving my correspondence publicity tlirough your ediitorial columns, and the courteous way in which you have treated it. I would. how*ever, ask space to refer to some of your comments. From your own admission the merits or demerits of my view turn upon the correctness or incorrectness of my figures Permit me %o elaborate my suggestions. Your i editorial suggests that it will be necessary to borrow the £4,500,000, and t then upon a purely imaginative. hypothesis suggests that the final amount ' payable will reach £16,000,000. Now it is not likely that compensation will 'be paid in cash, but in Government bonds, redeemable in twenty-five years. If we calculate the amount, necessary for interest and sinking fund on £4,500,000 covering a period of twentyfive years, the suggested maximum amount of compensation will be increased to. £6,250,000—a vastly different sum from £16,000,000. Moreover, if we wish to, take the amount of com- * pensation covering a period of twentyfive years, we should hold that steadily '.«'( in contrast.with a twenty-five years lease of life for the Trade. Or, at , other words, and more true to fact, the Trade, upon which the people or this Dominion spend £4,757,000 per an- '- ijum, oan be bought out for the small , gum of £250*000 per annum. Moreover, my correspondence, did not suggest, as your editorial infers, that the £4,757,000 was "wasted" or "lost" to the Dominion. Everybody knows ithat part of that money represents . taxes and fees, although it may be seriously questioned whether the amount suggested pays for the cost oi collecting, police courts, etc. But neither will the amount paid in compensation be lost to this Dominion, ll £1,000,000 is now saved in taxes and fees, a large proportion of it will be saved when the money spent on liquor i is spent upon essential commodities. Eliminating vested* interests, the drink Bill for New Zealand is £4,757,000 per annum, and the choice on April 10 lies between paying the Trade to quit and paying it to continue. ■_ Permit me to emphasise again the point I started out to emphasise yesterday, that the electors of New Zealand cannot avoid voting for compensation—compensation in the form-of £250,000 per annum for a period of twenty-five years, or compensation in the form of at least a year's time, which will enable the Trade to .take from * the puhlio' £4,767,000. • I « think, furthermore, that "the saving by, abolishing the Trade without comIjehsation "is quite obvious to all; at east it is so obvious to the Trade that It is willing to risk its chance with loaded dice, i.e., a three-cornered vote, rather than accent compensation to the tune of £4,500.000. Electors should keep this s-tearlilv in mind.—l am, etc., GEO. EDGAR MOORE, Trinity Congregational Ohurch. March 7, TO THE EDITOR. ; Sir,—When the blinding dust of the liquor fray has loig settled, and dispassionate • history writes the verdict, few points will stand out clearer than the curiously circumscribed arguments* which sufficed, for the most part, Press and public on this one question, while on others less important the broadly . international and human view was freely presented. What will our Greens and Froudes of to-mOrrow think of New Zealand's intelligence in the annus . rxrirabilis following the war, when files were filled with parochial clatter about four and a half millions of non-recur-rent outlay for which contemporary history promised an immediate and last- - ing return in national stability and well-being? I say " parochial" advisedly, while granting the necessity for argument on the lines laid down, by Mi • Raine and Mr Moore. But the expediency of the compensation proposal and the alleged inter-prohibitionist cleavage on the ethics of compensation are merely the trimmings of the question, not worth a whole leader at the present price of paper. It is true that no prohibitionist would ever pay compenj nation as compensation in the accepted ■ \ i sense. But since Mr Moore's figures /stand the light of dispassionate investigation, and since consequently no 'patriot would like to see the Old Man 'of the Sea on New Zealand's back for -•ven one year more than necessary, it -seems futile to stir up interjprohibiItionist controversy on a broadly na-

tional matter. "Consideration money" has perhaps a better sound than " compensation" under the circumstances But why not use the correct word, the word written on heart and paper all over New Zealand to-day? It is four and a half millions of redemption money we trust to pay on April 10. _ We have been throwing our war millions about with ease for four and a half years, and fattening the picture show and the totalisator at a record rate all the time. It is difficult to feel frightened about the few extra pence or shillings a year per head this redemption money, paid to save men, women and children, is going to Cost such buoyant borrowers (and payers) as ourselves. But it is not a matter of names or of temporary taxes that the Froudes and Greens will have looked for in our files when the story of the three great wars of the second decade of the twentieth century comes to be written—the three curiously inter-allied wars against Militarism, Exploitation and Alcohol. Ere that day many that arc now first shall be last, and the wheels of Time are now moving at such dazzling speed that a false turn, for a nation to-day means being flung out of the race. Why, the historians will ask, were not the leaders of opinion in the _ British dominions not studying the international and vital aspect more? Why did the day that North America saw and met on'the golden plane of opportunity find England, and Australasia chattering about local taxes and the glorious liberty of getting drunk? May it not be said of ourselves, at least, that Britain; unprepared as she was, had more Dreadnoughts and Old Cnnlemptibles to meet the first life-nnd-death struggle than New Zealand had saving argument to meet the second?—T am. etc.. JESSIE MACKAY. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I have read in your issue of today a letter, signed G. E. Moore, dealing with the question of compensation, and I must confess that I could not quite understand what ho was trying to prove until I read your leading article dealing with the letter. Your article, like other articles which you have written on finance from time to time, is so clear as not to '. leave any doubt in my mind as to this matter. I am now convinced on the four following points, viz.:— •••••. , 1. That G. E. Moore does not understand finance. 2. That prohibitionists forget that a considerable part of the annual expenditure on alcoholic liquor comes back in the shape of taxation, wages, etc. 3 That the experiment of prohibition will, cost the taxpayers £212,000 per annum for seventy-five years. 4. That the present amount spent on alcohol will be spent in other directions, but that though I will have to pay my share of the taxation, I am not likely to benefit personally by directing the money into new channels owing to tlie fact that I am only a salaried man and not a shopkeeper, etc. Again thanking you for.your article on the financial aspect of this ques-tidn'-1 am ' ete -AVON ELECTOR.