HALF A MILLION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 28 April 1945, Page 4

HALF A MILLION

NELSON’S WAR LOAN QUOTA NEED FOR MONEY EMPHASISED PREVENTING INFLATION The Nelson district quota for this year’s war loan is £523.000, against £671,000 last year. This was revealed at a meeting of town and country War Loan Committees yestcr- j day, when an address was given by j the Dominion organiser for the campaign, Mr K. W. Kilpatrick. Speaking of the difficulties likely to ; be experienced in raising the loan, Mr Kilpatrick said the reduced quotas would not mean any proportionate re- i duetion in effort by district committees.i From the point of view of public reaction it seemed that when the armies were nearing victory was not a good lime to launch a war loan, and it was logical to assume that the present turn of events would make it a little inoie difficult to raise the loan than al times when the outlook was more serious. Money must be drawn from the savings of tire people if the gap between war expenditure and estimated revenue was to be bridged’and inflation averted, continued Mr Kilpatrick. New Zealand’s estimated war expenditure lor was £100,000,000. Of this amount £25.000,000 was to be raised by the war loan. Far more than that sum was available in the country to-day at call. In limes such as these, with few consumer goods available, money which was lying idle represented a liability which must be turned to account. Investment in the war loan was not only a patriotic duty, but a very practical one. It was very desirable to have the money tied up so that the financial structure of the country could be maintained. When the war was over in Europe—and even when Japan was defeated —it would not necessarily be over on the home front, said Mr Kilpatrick. One of the slogans adopted for the campaign was, "Victory, must be paid for.” Nothing was more true than that. At the present time bills were coming through from Britain for goods ordered post haste in the very dark days of the war. When they were ordered the need was desperate and all Britain did was to send them out. There was no time to provide accounts. But now the bills were coming in and they had to be met. The only alternatives to bridgjng the gap between expenditure and revenue by a war loan were the creation of 'credit or taxation, concluded Mr Kilpatrick. Of the three alternatives there was only the one that w'as acceptable —the raising of a loan. DISTRICT QUOTAS Details of the loan campaign were given by Mr Kilpatrick, and after he had answered a number of questions, the district quotas were announced as follows: £ Nelson City 320.000 Brlghtwater 15,000 Collingwood 8.500 Motueka , 47.000 Murchison 14,500 Richmond 29.500 Tadmcr 5.000 Takaka 33.000 Upper Wakefield 30,000 The value of a sound organisation in a campaign of the type to be undertaken was emphasised by the Mayor of Nelson, Mr E. B. Neale, in moving a vote bf thanks to Mr Kilpatrick. As an example, he instanced the recent radio-telephone appeal for patriotic funds in which there were staggering differences between the amounts contributed in the different districts. "But look at it whatever way you like,” added Mr Neale, “half a million pounds is a lot of money for this district to find.”