A PONZIED PREMIER

Of all forms of government, the dictatorship moves with most speed. And among dictators, Premier Pangalos rivals Mussolini for absoluteness and Mustafa for ingenuity. The Greek ruler's latest bid for fame is based on financial wizardry of a sort Monsieur Caillaux never conceived of. By simple proclamation, so "Time" reports, Pangalos forces every possessor of a bank note with a face value of more than twenty five drachmas to snip an end therefrom. The snipped notes, worth three quarters of the legend printed on them, continue to circulate dolefully while the other quota goes to the "National Forced Loan".

What gives the project its touch of genius is the tender-hearted stipulation that each year the equivalent of $2,000,000 will be given away in lotteries to lucky bondholders. The Bolsheviki crudely killed the capitalists; the French socialists propose to tax their moneyed classes unmercifully; Pangalos gives the Greek tax-payer a mathematical chance. In spite of the snipping of notes, the snapping of jaws will be lessened by the hope of luck.

Pangalo's reliance on the old principle of chance is not without shrewdness. Even in America, state lotteries were the most popular of taxation until a puritanic court declared them illegal. Indeed, the Greek premier's clipping coup d'etat bids fair to place him in the Ponzi class of promoters.