The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1886. Commercial Canards.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1274, 26 June 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1886. Commercial Canards.

l ew oi our readers can have failed to notice the persistent attempts that have been made during the last six or seven years to injure the reputation and credit of certain large mercantile and financial institutions doing business in New Zealand. Again and again we have noticed paragraphs, letters and editorials in Colonial and English newspapers either broadly insinuating or boldly asserting thatfthis Bank or that trading company is bolstered up by the audacity of its directors and the influence of its shareholders. Attempts —very clumsy ones, it is true—have been made to show that one or two of our commercial corporations are practically insolvent, and that their collapse is only a matter of time. Business men who have the opportunities, intelligence, and inclination to weigh the merits of these slanders are not likely to be influenced by their virulence, but other sections of the community who in some vague manner associate our prolonged commercial depression with what they term the “ restrictive policy” of the Banks, are too ready to credit the derogatory statements they see in print. No one will deny that the closing decade has been a time of almost unparalleled depression in commercial circles. Initialed in England by the disastrous failure of the City of Glasgow bank, the pressure and difficulty attendant on a financial panic rapidly spread to all the British colonies, reaching New Zealand at a most inopportune time, when an enormous depieciation in the valufe of our staple products, and the partial failure of two successive harvests, had very considerably crippled the resources of the colony. Further than this, the difficulty of the position was aggravated by the embarrassment of those who had indiscretely over-speculated in land—people who simply bought to sell at higher rates, and when the limit was reached, and sales could not be effected, had neither capital nor credit with which to work their holdings efficiently and productively. It is interesting to examine the policies of our principal financial institutions during this period. The published bank returns, although meagre are sufficiently explicit to show that the purely New Zealand institutions have materially increased their accommodation to the public, and although the three foreign banks have somewhat reduced their advances, it is evident that the monetary pressure has not been caused by the action of the banks as a whole; restriction by the foreign institud' m having been rather more than compensated for by increased . facilities afforded by the local banks. These facts, we think, tend to confirm an opinion we have already expressed, that in time of difficulty and pressure the interest and wants of the colony are likely to receive greater consideration from institutions locally controlled than from those which must carry out a policy dictated from abroad. There is

very little doubt that in New Zealand we have suffered severely from the foreign banks withdrawing money from this colony to satisfy the Australian demand, and our neighbors add insult to injury when they impugn the stability of those institutions which have been mainly instrumental in enabling the colony to evade a great commercial disaster. Public Works Estimates.

The following are the Public Works Estimates for the year as set out in the Public Works Statement delivered in the House of Representatives last evening : Immigration, ,£19,200; departmental, £28,000 ; railways, £709,400 ; roads, £327,600; waterworks on goldfields, £15,100 ; purchase of Native lands, £roo,ooo; telegraph extension, £21,700; buildings, £112,000; lighthouses and harbor works and harbor defences, £12,500; rates on Crown lands, £35,400; toial for the year, £1,538,70°. The railway vo*es for the year are— North of Auckland, £4OOO ; Auckland doubling line, £5000; HamiltonGrahamstown, £20,000; AucklandRotorua, £15,000; Napier-Palmerston, £40,000; Wellington - Woodvillc, £40,000 ; ’ New . Plymouth-Foxton, £S5 o °j Wellington-Foxton, £500; Northern main uunk line, £130,000; Westport-Inangahua. £2000; Grey-mouth-Hokitika, £30,000; PictonSouthward, £15,000; Blenheim(survey only), £2000; Hurunui-northward, £16,000 ; UpperAshburton, £BOOO ; Lincoln, £BBOO ; Livingstone, £15,000 ; Catliu’s River, j£ i 3,0° 0 ; Edendale - Tois Tois, £5000; Otago-Central, £87,000; Lumsden-Mararoa, £5000; Seaward Bush, £6000; Riversdale-Switzers, £5000; additions to open lines (including Hurunui-Bluff, £50,280),

permanent way, &c., ,£67,000; rolling stock, £83,000; survey of new lines, £3000; total, £709,400. The Estimates include the following Canterbury works : —Roads Haast Pass, £1000; Hokitika-Christchurch. £9OOO ; sundry, £SO ; to open up lands before sale (for the whole colony not slated separately), £61,500; to Wilberforce reef and Browning’s Pass, £3OO

Court-house, Geraldine, £150; Lyttelton gaol, £900; police station, Christcl u ch, £100; Post and Tele graph Office, £450; Lunatic Asylum, Sunnyside, £7OOO.