The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1910. BORROWING AND TAXATION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 992, 6 December 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1910. BORROWING AND TAXATION.

It is,a very astonishing thing that an intelligent public, closely acquamted with public affairs, as the New Zealand public is, should so readily, -accept the dangerous policy.' of continuous borrowing which has grown up in this country as a; necessary and even 'desirable thing. ,How many of the public, we wonder, have really given any serious thought Jo the question of whether it is wise or necessary to add something every year to the indebtedness of the country with its consequential addition to the an-nually-increasing interest charge to be met. From the time of the death of John Ballance up to the present hour not;a year .has .passed without a loan being raised by the Government of thd day, and the amounts 'borrowed have grown in size, as the public have become seasoned to the borrowing habit. A Budget without a loan proposal would be received with amazement. And yet the public must know that this, borrowing cannot bo-carried on without the country bearing tho brunt of it. They must know-that apart from the repayment of the capital borrowed each loan means a heavy additional annual charge bri the people of the country. V . wonder • whether tho public-realise that the interest charge that the Dominion has to pay to-day is something like two millions per annum? The. truth of the matter is no 'doubt that they' think very little about tho question at all. They have become, habituated to borrowing and look at' it as' quite the natural thing, to. do. We have a very lively nope that the/huge loan just raised' by the -Prime.Minister will have a very ; '..beneficial ■effect, in .waking up the what is happening and what.-the■ consequences may be unless, a. check .is. put on 'the reckless pilmg-up of.', the public debt of : the country- by .the .biggest ; political plunger who has ever controlled the destiny of New Zealand. - .Despite all. that has been said by the Prime Minister to s the contrary the five-million loan recently placed on the London market has not bean a happy venture. Apart from the fact that it has knocked our three and a half per cents down to 96, thero is tho undoubted evidence that the .British investing public have fought shy of it. The underwriters have had to provide 93 'per' (font of the money and'the public have taken up .only,- the' remaining 7, per cent. When it.is. borne in mind that of this "five millions 'a millioii and a quarter, was to meet the cost of the gift Dreadnought and that the way to..favour.-had been further paved by the niuch-vaunted debt extinction proposals, the full effect of the position will,be better realised. The wholo trend of vthe Prime Minister's political life has been towards making the' British public provide the funds T for the political railways, roads, and- bridges by which alone he can hope to keep his Government inofficc. That'such a policy, if long continued, is fatal to independent ', thought and action, few people will deny.- Notwithstanding that the chief' part 'of the burden will fall on our posterity, we are already feeling the difficulty of providing the huge annual interest in addition to the. colony's internal requirements. To enable this temporarily but permanently blighting, policy to continue, increased revenue had to be provided, and we cannot help thinking that thd .At-torney-General owes his sudden elevation, to the urgent necessity for a skilled contriver of new taxes. Since the advent of the so-called Liberal party we have become accustomed to seeing appointments made to the Legislative Council of men who have never served in the popular branch of the Legislature. The Government, however, took a new line, altogether when they' appointed ■■ to the actual leadership of. the Council, and a seat in tho Cabinet, a gentleman, who only on one occasion afforded the electors an opportunity of gauging his_ fitness and then received an unmistakable hint that private life was the sphere of action, for which he-was best equipped. We* do not wish to do Dr. Findlay an injustice, but it seems to us his chief occupation, since ho took his seat, has'been to indicate to his political chief new and highly technical methods of extracting, money' from settlers in their lifetime and from' their representatives, after- their death. That he has attacked his unpleasant task with vigour and success is obvious to every taxpayer, and our, only hope. of cessation in this new realm o£ political activity is that the recent failure may make Sir Joseph 'Ward-, hesitate before flooding the colony .with another stream of borrowed money. If this hesitation lasts until after the next general election we have great hopes that the ranks of the anti-borrowers will have increased to such an ox-tent-as to make the ignoring of their wishes impossible. • It is now generally recognised that public borrowing will never bo brought within reasonable limits until the present leaders in both Houses are removed from their office's. .If the past is any guide, S3 long as anyone can bo found willing .to lend; so long will Sir Joseph Ward be found ready to borrow, and so long as his political chief is ready and able to borrow, so long will Dn. Findlay exercise his ingenuity in inventing new taxes. There are two other points which call foV attention, but which it is hardly necessary to emphasise on the present occasion. The first' is that, this regular and excessive harrowing

promotes extravagance generally,- as well as the mis-spending of the money borrowed. The second is that the increase of population has not kept pace with the piling-up of the public burdens, and no real effort has been made to spread the liabilities incurred by affording- inducements to immigrants of a desirable class to make their homes here.- We do not wish to discuss these aspects of the position and merely direct attention to them because they accentuate the evil of the borrowing and waste that ■ has been going on: If public interest in the Government's borrowing habits is aroused as the result of the huge loan just placed on the London market, it may in the end prove a blessing in disguise. When, people once start thinking they will, see how very wrong the idea that it is necessary or wise to go on borrowing regularly year after year really is. They will recognise that a large part of the money so borrowed has been used merely to bribe the .electorates to keep the Government in office.-,. They will appreciate further that this simply means that the public have all these years been 'bribed with their own moifcy. Such, an awakening would put an end to the possibility of a continuance of the plunging and recklessness of past years and would also terminate the political existence of. those who have been responsible for it.