THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 317, 27 June 1889, Page 2

THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

Any person who deserves to call himself a colonist of New Zealand must be highly pleased at the tenor of the Financial Statement just delivered. Party feeling may well be thrown aside in the contemplation of a result which is so satisfactory to us all. There is a surplus ; a small one, certainly, but nevertheless a surplus, and that is what we have not previously been able to boast of for some time. And the most satisfactory point of all, to our minds, is that there is no proposal for further borrowing. Major Atkinson is entitled to the thanks of every colonist for the way in which he has pulled the colony through the troubled crisis, and if there is a manly effort to abide by the warning he still holds out, we may soon expect to see New Zealand occupying a very high rank among the colonies of Australasia, and, in place of an efflux of the flower of our population, to see a steady in-flow of the right class of people to enable us to develope the grand future of the country. The most displeasing part of the Statement are the proposals with regard to the Otago Central and North Island Trunk Railway lines, but the determination to carry on these works seems to be too strong for any Government to long hold out against it. It is rather amusing to hear the Treasurer talking of keeping within the limits of prudence, and in the next breath confessing that he has become a convert to the Otago railway job. Still, we must, judging by the past, be thankful that things are no worse. _ If we can do without further borrowing, that will be a great step in the way of reform, and when the Atkinson Government have managed so well to tide the colony over a critical period, we must hope that they have grasped the situation sufficiently not to immediately plunge the colony again into a pit of trouble, by undertaking the continuation of useless and unprofitable works. Many weak points might be criticised in the Statement, but on ths whole it is the most satisfactory that has been made in New Zealand for years, and Sir Harry Atkinson well deserves the praise which the success of his labors has elicited, At the present time the colony requires practical men at the head of affairs, and the Premier has certainly justified the confidence that has been reposed in him.