THE GOLDEN EGG

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 73, 29 April 1930, Page 6

THE GOLDEN EGG

In, recent years we have grown so aecustomed to the phrase "Safeguarding of industry" that it has almost become a shibboleth in party politics. On the other hand,. one never hears anything concerning the safeguarding of capital. Perhaps it is that Capital, rightly or vrrongly, is presumed to be in a position to safeguard itself. And vet the safeguarding of capital is of paramount importance — and must on no acconnt be neglected. According to recent Board of Trade returns regarding the international balanee of payments of the United Kingdom, the estimated annual income from overseas investments is no less than £285,000,000! It is a gigantic figure — exceeding even the estimates for income tax which were anticipated, last year, to bring in some £239,500,000. No single industry could approach this sum in the value of its experts — indeed, it is doubtful if the figure could even be equalled by the sum total of tbe three principal exports, coal, cotton and woollen goods. The colossal principal represented by this interest payment has been accumulated through long years of thrift — years when the United Ningdom led the world in. the export of manufactured articles and machinerv — and augmented by the substantial incomes derived from sueh sources as tea and rubber. To a country which relies solely upon outside sources for its supplies- of food and for the raw materials so essential to its manu factur ing industries, this large "invisible export" is nothing less than a "saving grace" in the balancing of the nation's budget. Without it exports would show a deficiency as compared with imports, and it is doubtful if, without this h'uge annual income from foreign investments, the country could be considered as financial. It is the salvation of Great Britain to-day, as it has always been. It is to this large amount of surplus capital that' the country has to look for the bone and sinew wherewitb to bolster up the industries which have been sa rudely shattered by post-war eonditions. Indeed, if the United Kingdom is to recover her lost position as the foremost manufacturing country of the world it is to her vast capital resources rather than to her present industrial condition that we must look for this attamment. , On every hand one eonstantly hears a tirade against the capitalist. He is represented as an ogre retarding the moral and social uplifting of the human race. Wars, pestilenee, famines and high prices are regarded'as emanating from the capitalist, but by income tax, death duties, surtax and other taxes— all mrposed with the one definite object of increasiner revenue — is capital

mulcted and bespoiled. At oue time Socialists and others discoursed upon the nniversal distribution of wealth as the p-anacea for all evils, but happilv of late years the more level-headed have realised that thmgs are not always as they seemed, and that to tax capital out of house and horfie would be simplv lrilling the goose that _ laid the golden egg. And there is nothing surer. Capital will stancl a good' deal, but not too much ; and if treated too unreasonably there is nothing whatever to hinder the capitalist from transferring his abode, and affections, to some other countrv more hospitahly inclined. In the young countries of the Southern B[emisphere, where thousands and thousands of square miles of new country await development, where monev is eonstantly required for economic development for railways, roads and waterways. municipal and harhour * schemes,. lighting, power and industry, and the thousand and oue schemes connected with advancement— capnal should, more than ever, be inyited. with cordiality and, onoe obtamed, guarded iealously. Safeguarding of industry is very right and propei; in its way, but as no industry is possible without capital, let us learn one more lesson from our friends across the Tasman— the necessity for thrift. And coupled with it — the safeguarding oi capital.