The Loan Proposal.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 444, 22 April 1890, Page 3

The Loan Proposal.

PRESS OPINIONS. (Lyttletou Times.) We hope to nee a very much more rapid rate oi progress set going are long, This, however, can only be effected by means of a liberal and judicious expenditure. It will hardly be pretended that the needful funds can be raised Oy additinnal taxation. That is manifestly not to be thought of. No other plan seem« practicable, eave a small special loan expressly raised for this specific purpose and rigidly appropriated to that alone. It cannot ba doubted that the colony would be recouped over and over again, if the fund thus created weie wisely and prudently administered. Such a departure would teud in more ways than one to stimulate the reviving prosperity of New Zealand, and we sincerely trust that the advisableness of the policy will commend itself so forcibly to the Government that steps may be taken during the coming session to carry it into practical effect.

(Napier News.)

The specific purpose for which the new loan is required is the making of roads and bridges to open up Crown lands available for settlement. We are told the loan should be * ear marked,* but • ear marking ’ has been found a very aorry safeguard in the past, and we should object very strongly to the present ministry being trusted with the money. The statement is made that the House is to be met with a surplus of £116,000, and great is the crowing of the Ministerial organs over this assertion. But just as there are ‘ faggots and faggots ’ there are • surpluses and surpluses.’ and when the real nature of the promised surplus comes under keen scrutiny by financial critics, it will be found, we believe, to be merely a paper surplus, not a real one, merely another product of the clever brain of that prince of ‘jugglers with figures,’ Sir Harry Atkinson. If the surplus is a genuine one, why is a loan needed ’—if a loan is to be advocated, what becomes of the ‘ nonborrowing ’ virtues of the present Ministry ?

(Wellington Press.) We are inclined to think that the loan is really required—as the last loan wan required —in the interests of the Bank of New Zealand. Nobody has forgotten the passionate pleading of Sir Frederick Whitaker, the special representative of the bank in the Government and the Legislative Council, for the million loan, and hie declaration that the refusal of it would involve bankruptcy,—we think he said,—“of the colony.” We naturally ask whether we are to have the same tragic appeal to Parliament to carry this loan. Of course it is difficult to find a plausible excuse for springing a million, or a three quarters of a million loan on us just now, and we dare, say that the suggestion of a loan for roads and surveys was adopted as quite a hopeful one, and at any rate it was quite good enough for a feeler. In all these matters the great thing is to accustom the public mind to the idea of a loan. Once get the constituencies to believe that a loan will be applied for, and they will soon cease to inquire into the origin of the proposal, or the necessity for it; they will at once direct their attention to securing their share. Sir Harry knows well that nothing will help him so well through the next session as a loan to be divided. The Bank of New Zealand will get a plum out of the raising of the loan—a dividend for the shareholders,—and there will be a nice round sum to the account when it is raised, all sorts of expectations will be excited, and expectations of favor to come secure the gratitude of the constituencies and keep the Members well in hand till the distributinn is made. To suppose then that the Government and the Bank desire to promote a loan is most reasonable.