TO MEET THE COST.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14740, 20 October 1915, Page 4

TO MEET THE COST.

The writer above'referred to says that though Britain lias added £900,000,(XK to her Funded Debt and well ovei .£200,000,000 to the floating debt, anr though the war may only be beginning there is no cause for alarm. Everything depends on how war’s problems, financial and commercial, are met in the meantimt If they are met boldly and sensibly, then he feels assrired Britain will end the wai a richer and more powerful people than she began it. Not richer in aggregate wealth- -that is hardly possible; . bu( richer through a great improvement ii the distribution of the wealth, and a' diminution in the number of people who are near the destitution line at the bottom of the social ladder. There is no need, he.says, to be terrified >by the appatently appalling figures of the increase in the debt charge arid other liabilities. Iri the current number of the Edinburgh Review, its editor, that sturdy champion of economy and straightforward finance esflmatos that by the’time the war ends

the increase of our „ National Debt will be not less than £2,000*000,000. This wilt mean an annual charge, for interest and sinking fund, of ill 10,000,000. Mr Harold Cox adds to this another .£20,000,000 for pensions to disabled soldiers, and to widows and dependents of the fallen, making a total of ,£130,000,000. It is a .monstrous big sum to find every year, but the writer points out that it is -£30,000,000 leas than the amount that Britain spends in a year on various forms of alcoholic indulgence. Viewed in this comparative light, the charge begins to look very different. To a people that pours .£160,000,000 worth of strong drink down its throat every year, a charge of -£130, 000, 000 incurred • for victory in the cause of civilisation is, he says, a matter that can be faced with 1 confidence. That does not mean that it should not be faced earnestly. By far the greater part of the war debt will ha a domestic affair,'and the charge involved by it will be out pf one pocket into another. It will be merely the business of the Government of the" day to see that the money required for this charge comes out of, the right pocket —that, is out of the pocket that is fullest, and so best able to be dipped into. As to the pocket into which the interest charge will go, that depends, says the Review editor, on who finds the money for this big increase in debt that is expected. Be goes on to say; For the first time in historv the work-ing-classes have been invited to take part in financing a great war. If only they e*n bo induced to save but of the high wages that they axe earning they have thq chance of a century for revolutionising their position, and for .ending the war. as capitalists, with a big reserve behind them, able to speak on all industrial questions with a .strength and confidence that they have never known before. That terrible delusion, so rife among . them, that the way to use money is to spend it, has for generations 'delivered themover into the hands of the employers, If the present economy campaign can, only cure them of it we shall have made a long step towards the kind of social revolution that will do everybody good. It will do everybody good, because one of the economic lessons that the nation is learning from the war is that it does not pav a nation to have its working-elassei underfed, ill-housed, and working in unwholesome and cheerless conditions. The country,'was waking up to this fact; very slowly.' before the wpr, 'but the war has opened its eyes with a bang.; And this is one reason why wo need not convince ourselves that a period of depression; and acute .unemployment is certain to come after,the war,, after a, period of, shortlived, and fevqrish activity,in trade. Such a period of. depression is according to precedent; but it is the business of states-,, manshin to improve on precedent. If we leave tilings to slide when the wer is ov»r it is likely enough that precedent veil repeat itself. But there is no reason why it should necessarily follow. ■