CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17089, 22 August 1917, Page 3

CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE.

_ "Prospective Cannon Fodder" resents the If U VL a xl. order for Trentham to the enect that soldiers on leave who do not salute officers are liable to have their leave cancelled and bo returned to camp at once The soldier, he says, may be a man of verv responsiblo position, but if ho should, on short final leave, meet his clerk in his own locality, when ho might greatly desire for the moment that military matters should bo forgotten, he must salute or get immediatelv returned to camp! The thing in itself is trifling, but he regards tho principle behind it as tho very thing we are called upon to fight strenuously against—namelv, honouring militarism and war not only "in military but m civilian life. x, " r? - - D- ?»••. ?•!' d 0 .03 not understand why the Prime Minister, in drawing a lurid picture of the chaos that would ensue if the Government were to adopt conscription of wealth as the principle upon which money 15 to be raised to meet the expenses of the war, should begin by assuming a levy of 25 per cent. The wealth of the dominion is estimated at 800 millions. Consequents a levy of 3 per cent, would conscript 24 millions, tho amount of the proposed loan The wealth concerned is of two kinds— namely, material wealth, which is regarded as of intrinsic value, or as possessing earning power, as jewellery, land, a coal mine, a ship, and commercial wealth, which is represented by the earning power associated with an organisation possess : ng a measure of monopoly of control of production or of the agency of distribution within a given sphere or. area. Tho owners of material wealth might find it convenient to arrange the immed-ate settlement of the levy. But a n ? fc i re nced bG n0 disastrous haste' A duly registered, interest-bearing preference loan upon tho whole estate would .servo the purpose of the State. Upon this security a State issue of credit or paper money would command the confidence of the world s financial institutions, and would be freely negotiable. A levy upon a company m-ght mean a reduced dividend for a, year or failing that, an equivalent mi°-ht be rcalsed upon/the sale, of an issue of preference shares. This process would certainly not produce either economic or commercial chaos, nor any alarmincr consequences. A levy of 3 per cent, is assumed, in order to raise an equ-'valent to the proposed 24 million loan. But if the war. should continue another year, the cost of it would probably mean a levy of 6 per cent, and the indefinite aftermath m the form of pensions and provision for dependents might probably increase the amount of tho levy to about 9 per cent on the wealth of the donvnion—approximatolv one-third of the Prime Ministers immediate 25 per cent, for present need only.