OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US.

Inangahua Times, Volume XI, Issue 1725, 2 July 1886, Page 2

OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US.

The London Standard of May Ist has a pithy leader ou the Financial position of New Zealand. Referring also to South Australia and Queensland, it Ba y S : — «• These three colonies are the most debt-ridden of all the Australian group. Their public burdens have attained an amount of between fifty and sixty pounds per head, and every thing they possess is'in some degree mortgaged. New Zealand, despond ing colonists allege, has now nothing left to pawn except its climate. This is brave borrowing, but no friends of the colonies can see it go on as it has been doing for the last half-a-dozen years without misgivings." It also goes on to state that '* Ministers of the State, and their friends travel about in satin lined saloon railway carriages, champagne is pressed upon the visitor halfa-dozen times a day, the race for money is kept up vigorously. All is luxury, and the borrowed splendours of civilization are looked upon as evidence of ' pro gress,' " The whole ai-ticle is strongly damaging in its tone to the colony, and the writer has evidently culled the whole of his colonial lore from that absurdly erroneous work of Mr Frouiles. The following extract from the article in question is a bright picture to put before the English public: — " Wages are kept artificially high by the borrowed money, while on the other hand immigration is discouraged. Those who enjoy the good things brought by the loans object to inimigrantß, lest their influx should lower wages. An artificial life is fostered, with the strange result that among the show of abundance there is no prosperity, no progiess. Borrowing has to proceed at an ever*acceleruting pace to keep things at their normal level, because the weight of the Det-t j is month by month becoming more crushing. Surely it is one of the strangest spectacles the world ever saw' to find a land not one-fiftieth part occupied so tied up and bepatchmeuted that new arrivals cannot find a place to put in a spade. Hardly a steamer leaves New Zealand w'thont carrying away men who have failed to discover any means of earning there bread there. The subsistence limit grows narrower as the Debt mounts. A land tax, however cuoi-ons/ would not, as Mr Froude seems to tuink, cure this. New Zealand has a long, stormy course to experience before better days dawn upon her. The writer concludes by paving " Sir Julius Yogel, the Colonial Trea surer of New Zealand, has lately come forward with a remedial programme. It is a programme worthy of his past career, but one more fraught with disaster to the Colony it would be ' hard to find. His scheme is simply •borrow more money.' He and his ' supporters have lately been stumping the country, aud their plan is to raise so much a year in order to build more railways, assist immigrants, and carry out more " public works." What will be the condition of such a celony five or six years hence should Sir Julius have his own way. It is a Oolony wasting millions of the loans because it could not pay its way a week without them. It lives by borrowed money because its borrowings in past years have twisted and diverted the life of the inhabitants from its natural course. A Colony in the true sense is not what we find, but a soil in the grasp of speculators — a people hud died into towns, dependent upon " public works " for subsistence ; Municipalities "joyfully" dispensing other people's money, a land of Banks and Mortgage Companies and Finance Companies ; a community whose very life is johhed away on the Stock Exchange with no more thought than if it were so much hemp. Such a country ought not to have another penny of English savings, be the consequence what they may. Better face the worst, and force tbe Colonists to do so." This is a picture of the country we live in. seen by the eyes of others.