THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1916. A LOCAL WAR LOAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16645, 17 March 1916, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1916. A LOCAL WAR LOAN.

" Fkom the financial point of view," Professor Bedford said last night, " New Zealand is the most selrish and least patriotic part of the Empire." Tnis was a sweeping statement to make and one which, if true, is distinctly damaging to tho self-respect of this community. Unfortunately the truth of it is indisNew Zealand is profiting hugely through the war. Tiie value of her exports, exclusive of specie, was last year £5,176,897 in excess of that of the previous year. In January of this year —in one month alone—an increase of £1,342,100 was shown in the value of her exports over those of the corresponding month of last year. It is possible,

however, to exaggerate the importance of comparisons based on short periods. For this reason we do not lay any stress on the figures for January. They merely suggest the likelihood that the total exports for this year will be in excess of those for last year, unprecedentedly great though these were. But a more striking test than the one offered by the export figures is that afforded by the comparison between exports and imports. In 1914 the balance of exports over imports was £5,109,678 in value. There had been one previous year in which the balance was more favourable to the dominion. Last year, however, . the figures of 1914 were completely eclipsed: the balance of exports over imports was £10,772,102, or an amount more than equal to that of the two best trading years which the dominion had ever had until then. Now it was directly due to the war that this remarkable trade balance was recorded in favour of the dominion. New Zealand is in the happy position of being able to supply commodities that are required for the sustenance of the army in tftie field and of the British population at Home. And, as a result of the war demand, she has been able to get exceptionally favourable prices, all round, for these commodities. While, however, New Zealand has been securing from the Mother Country these high prices for the commodities supplied to her, she has not scrupled at the same time to look to the Mother Country for all the money—more than £500,000 a month—that is required to equip and maintain the expeditionary forces of the dominion. It has been laid down by statesmen at Home that those who have benefited financially by the war owe it as a duty to their country to return to the State, by way either of loan or of taxes, the excess profits or earnings they are enjoying. Already taxation has been carried in the United Kingdom not merely to an extent that was previously undreamtof but to a degree that may be described as extremely drastic—and the burden is being cheerfully borne by all classes of the public, tor they recognise that it is their patriotic duty to assist the State financially to the limit of their power. ■• The Imperial Government has, at the same time, devised means whereby it may borrow not merely from tne great financial corporations but also from the humblest investors of small sums —in amounts as low as £I—and there have been suggestions that forced loans may be exacted. It has actually borrowed huge sums to enable it to discharge the colossal task which the prosecution of the war has imposed upon-it. ■ Not only has it to jDrovide by borrowed money and through taxation for the maintenance and for the war of the army and navy, but it has also to act as banker for the Allies. When' the last Budget was submitted in the House of Commons, the Imperial Government had already lent £423,000,000 to the Allied countries, and it must continue to | finance them as long as the war lasts. These facts explain the need for the vast borrowing and the heavy taxation which have been authorised by the Imperial Parliament, and they indicate the tremendous strain to which the financial power of the United Kingdom is being subjected. In circumstances such as these, it is surely humiliating to a prosperous country like New Zealand—a country prosperous because of the war which is saddling the people of Great Britain with an enormous burden of debt—that she should rely upon the Mother Country to provide her with the money that is required by her for war purposes. Most people in the dominion who consider the matter must experience a distinct sense of shame when they reflect that their country,-although enjoying unprecedented trade prosperity at the expense of Great Britain and although well able to provide from her own resources at least a substantial proportion of the expenditure entailed on her by the war, is selfishly and ungratefully leaning upon the heavily-burdened Mother Country for the whole cf the money she requires for this purpose. It is to be hoped that the exposition by Professor Bedford, as an economist, of the case in favour of the issue, as in Australia and Canada, of a domestic war loan and in favour of the adoption of a policy under which the dominion would, as Canada has done, lend a proportion of her products to Great Britain will be pondered by those in authority in the dominion. It is not necessary to go all the way with Professor Bedford in the views he enunciated—it is possible that he over-estimated the financial ability of this country—to agree with him that a reversal of the policy which the Government has followed is imperative in order that New Zealand may no longer lie under the imputation of financial poltroonery that is- justly levelled at her by Mr James Begg in a letter published by us this morning.