The Sun THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1914. THE PROPOSED WAR TAX.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 257, 3 December 1914, Page 6

The Sun THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1914. THE PROPOSED WAR TAX.

There is, a specious attractiveness about schemes for compelling people to do their duty, but they are pone the less dangerous and impracticable on that account. It may be perfectly true, as a member of the Chamber of Commerce stated yesterday, tli&t there are men in our midst % worth- £IOO,OOO who are so deplorably mean ami selfish that they have resisted, every appeal made to them to subscribe :to one or other of the war funds, but it does not follow that the ends of justice would be achieved, or any good purpose served, by sorting them out, and compelling them to subscribe pound for pound with the open-handed citizen who is voluntarily giving all he can afford to help the Empire in its hour of need. A voluntary act of patriotism and generosity is supposed to bring its own reward —the consciousness of duty promptly and dohe—and to our thinking thei'e fs something repugnant a~bout this ceaseless scrutiny of subscription lists, this measuring up of one man's self-sacrifice .against another's. The men who don't subscribe, although in a position to do so, may safely be left to square it with their own consciences. They have forfeited the esteem of their fellow, citizens, if they ever posseted it, and they cannot get much 'real 'satisfaction out of the size of their bank balances, when ■they know that had they been willing to reduce them a . little, they might have relieved -tintold suffering amongst the victims of the ivfrar, or added a little to the efficiency of the men who are displaying such marvellous valour on the battlefield. But when it. comes to the imposition of a war tax, that is another matter. Taxation is a plain and prosaic | operation by Avhich public needs are i provided for by a levy on the private I wealth of the community. It has no ethical bearing or significance whatever, and when politicians try to combine moral with fiscal aims they invariably get into trouble, and perpetrate follies and acts of injustice. <So far as the Government can see at present, the war is going to cost New Zealand £3,000,000 for the,first year of its duration, and a war loan has been raised accordingly. The annual charge will amount to about £75,000 or £BO,OOO a year, and at 'least.. 1 per cent., or £20,000 a year should be set aside as a MriKiirg fund to extinguish the loan whi<?h cannot in any sense be regarded as reproductive. After all, it is a small .addition to the interest and sinking fund charges that Liberal and Reform Governments alike pile up with such disquieting rapidity. It is/equal to about 2/- per head, and will never be noticed. It would be a simple matter to levy some additional impost to bring in an eatra £IOO,OOO a year, but is it worth "vVhile, when the annual increase in the revenue from .taxation has averaged over £200,000 per annum for the past ten years? At any rate there is no immediate necessity for moving in the matter, and it might very well stand over till the end of the war.

The news of the safe arrival and disembarkation of the Australian and New Zealand Expeditionary Forces at Egypt will be greeted with a general satisfaction throughout Australasia. The voyage of the numerous transports over such a long stretch of open ocean was one fraught with not a little anxiety, chiefly on account of the possibility of a sudden attack by those of the enemy's cruisers which are still at large. The carriage of nearly 30,000 men across the Indian Ocean without injury or hindrance is a triumph for the transport authorities, and will surely rank high in the records of a world-war crammed with brilliant exploits both on land and : sea. When the history of this appalling struggle comes to be written, the historians will be able to stress the unexampled superiority of Britain as a naval power and tlie'wisdom of a young Dominion in building a local riaVy which has rendered such invaluable assistance. Tlie Sydney-Emden episode at the Cocos Islands made clear the fact that the Australasian troops were bound for Egypt. The Colonials are to help protect British interests in that country against a Turkish invasion, and when that task is completed they are to be shipped to the front to take their place beside the British soldiers on the Continent. This Egyptian service will afford our men all the training necessary to qualify them for a place in the firing line in France or Flanders. The Imperial authorities' have had to strip the garrisons in Egypt to meet the Turks, who, we were informed several weeks ago, l were threatening the Suez ; Canal. T'hie inflammatory nature of the Moslem temperament makeis it necessary that there should be sufficient men left in Egypt tti quell possible insurrections before they have time to develop, but it should not be long before the Australians and the New Zealanders are "blooded" in the open field. They will find in the German-trained Turks a powerful and stubborn . foe, but there need be no anxiety as to how our men will quit themselves. The; material is there, and the Colonial forces only require to be capably handled and equipped to make a name for themselves, even as they did in South Africa.