MR MURRAY AND FINANCE.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 139, 9 March 1877, Page 6

MR MURRAY AND FINANCE.

We extract the following from a leading article which appeared in the Lyttelton Times on the 20th ultimo :— *

Finance is not a subject to be trifled with, and yet it has,' during the last four years, received in this Colony very littleconsideradon. The public generally has been content to take the goods the gods provided and ask no questions. Last session this vital question was thrust aside, and postponed to a more convenient season. Post-sessional utterances have followed suit. Mr Ormond and Mr Donald Reid, before they joined the Ministry, made speeches, but scarcely referred to the subject. Sir George Grey in his two orations laid no stress on it. Mr Montgomery expressly avoided it, and it would have been better if Mr Fitaroy had done the same So far as we recollect, tho few other members, tvho have addressed their constituents, have been equally reticent, with one exception. That exception is Mr Murray, member for Bruce, who, in his recent speech at Milton, did deign to point out with some detail the downward progress which we were rapidly making in our downward career. There were some evident misprints in some ot the figures which he is reported to have given, but there is in the tenor of his remarks sufficient proof that he has bestowed some thought on the subject, and that he considers ils importance great enough to justify him in the expression of that thought. Mr Murray bas of late considerably risen in the estimation of the House of Representatives. He is genuine, and there is an uncompromising integrity about him which wins respect, while a strong vein of common sense runs through many of his speeches. He has always played tha part ol Apemantus- to Sir Julius Vogel's Timon. And he has had the art of extracting by cross-examinatoi-y questions and lerriting motions, much information which has thrown new light on important financial transactions. True to his natural sense of the iituess of things, Air Murray has seen the conying crisis of finance, and, as a member both m the House and out of the House — "among the faithless faithful only he" — has done his best to warn us of breakers ahead, and advise us to reduce sail, and to change the course. Dodge it as we ma}', it will surely find us out at Just. Halting though its step occasionally is, that step must sooner or later overtake us in our flight. There is no special mystery about financj. If we deal honestly with it, it will deal honestly with us. Jf we live within our means, it will ever bo s», faithful ally ; but if we live beyond them — if we try to prove that two and two make five, and spend five shillings for every four which we get — it will ever be an uncompromisiug foe, and iv i the contest we shall always be beaten. Resistance and evasion aie alike useless.

We are in tho wrong, and the longer we go on in the same path, the more we go from bad to worse. What havo we been doing for the last six years / We have lived extravagantly beyond our income. We have incurred a floating debt of above half a million in Treasury Bills, a debt which only represents un reproductive expenditure. We have added ten millions to our permanent debt, a third of which, at least, is unproductive expenditure. What are we doing now ? At the end of June next, our Consolidated Revenue Account will probably show a deficiency of'LUB,OOO • and our Land Fund Ac-' couut will probably show another deficiency of £188,000.