THE VICTORY LOAN.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1736, 6 September 1919, Page 8

THE VICTORY LOAN.

The prospectus of the Victory Loan of £10,000,000 at 4i per cent, free of income tax, is published on another page, and we commend it to the careful and sympathetic consideration of all our readers who are in a position to invest. The Minister of Finance explains that the money is required for repatriation purposes, to provide pay, gratuities and allowances for our soldiers, to buy them farms and re-establish them in civil occupations. It should be needless at this stage to labour the fact that the debt the Dominion owes its brave army can never be wholly repaid, but the Government, to its credit, is doing in its own blundering fashion all that is humanly possible to compensate soldiers for what they have suffered and endured, and is endeavouring to ensure that on resuming their civil life none shall be without a suitable ahd congenial means of earning a livelihood. The banking returns indicate that the present loan should be subscribed without difficulty. The terms make the loan attractive as an investment, and it should not be necessary to fall back on the compulsory clauses. The principle of the forced loan is inherently vicious, and is liable to abuse. It is unfortunate that it should be necessary to invoke provisions of this nature, but there appears to be no other way of getting at the man who refuses to recognise any moral obligation to lend a reasonable portion of his savings to the State. Still, no one will be better pleased than the Minister of Finance should it be unnecessary to invoke the aid of the compulsory clauses, and it will be a good advertisement for the Dominion if, in addition to the money it has already found for war purposes, it voluntarily provides the £10,000.000 now asked for.