The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1912. NEW ZEALAND'S DEBT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1470, 19 June 1912, Page 4

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1912. NEW ZEALAND'S DEBT.

The now four-million (or four and a half million) loan that the Mackenzie Government has been forced to float in London has naturally attracted much attention in Australia. Its coming so quickly after the fivemillion and £1,850,000 loans of 1900, and the heavy price London has charged for it, make it sensational enough to stimulate Australian notice. The city editor of the Sydney Daily Tclr.r/rapli, one of the ablest financial writers in Australasia, has some observations, well worth tho consideration of Now Zcalanders, upon "the remarkable rapidity' with which the debts of New Zealand have been advancing, "especially in recent years." The Government debt grew from £38,830,350 in 1801 to £'19,591,245 in 1901—an increase of under eleven millions. In the next decade—l9ol to 1911—it grew to £81,078,122, an increase for the ten years of over thirltj-onc millions. On March 31 of last year the sum of the Government debt and the local bodies' own debts was £96,805,733. The new operation has brought New Zealand at last to the point of owing well over one hundred millions sterling. The Government debt per head on March 31, 1911, was £80 7s. 10d., as against an average Government debt for the Commonwealth of £59 10s. 6d. per head. To-day the New Zealand Government debt per head is over £84. Nor is it only in the load he must carry that the New Zealand victim of "Liberalism" and Wardist finance is worse off than the Australian citizen. He has to pay, according to the writer quoted, more for each pound lie owes. The average interest on the New Zealand debt "is £3 17s. 7d. pw cent, and on the debt of Australia £3 11s. 'Id. A simple calculation will show that the charge for foreign iiidiilitcdiioss is nearly r>o per cent more per head in New 'Zealand than in Australia. It can hardly be thought surprising that I lie wi'ilfii , in the Teleyrupli says that "(.his growl.li «1' New Zealand indebtedness is. going too fast." "Nearly &M,0(10,000 increase in the pasl. live years," he adds, "is especially heavy." It is equivalent to an increase in the British national debt, for Hie same period, of £ 1,080,000.000 —over a thousand millions. Actually, Britain's debt is only about .Glli a head altogether at this moment.

But, it may bo urged, our debt is reproductive. No doubt a portion of it is. Mi!. Mackenzie, a few weeks ago, said without any qualification that the revenues from State enterprises of all sorts exceeded the interest charges on our tolal debt, hut within the last few clays he has modified this grotesque, exaggeration, which he never attempted to supDort by a sinale ouuee of evidence.

by saying that the rpve.iiu.i; itdiil those enterprises (railways, lands., etc.) ''directly and '-balance the interest Ui;ll. Tll-at, u( course, is quite aivuther tliiHg and h mere spi'culatio.j!. As , a iinlttuv of fact, bad polities ayid. brtct- Ijjiiinc;; methods have jiicijai cl : i;qal 1-j- ivTft.'gtc-r-t its position as c;>iiip;ii*d ; with Australia. The biggest j'tei.u in. the, i'i.st of debt purposils h>. in .eafh,e£nnth:y the railways, In .Ai'sti'ii.lii.t' the v-arj* ways balance f;i;r m.ore tha.n nays tills interest on the rajhva.v.s ; ili'.hl'. j ~ : t.b is hundreds of tlio,ijs;mtis ifi the gop.tt, in the aggregate. Iji Ztfitevid it lias for years bfeeii aiivni.ially ;i' si;:ifigure total to .the :b:iii;t Qviito half of our debt fails, to: e'itf.n foil interest, twenty millions .ca'rn no , i.fite'.rest at all. Now, New Zealand is in almost every w.aj? nrorc;-ha.ij;jii;iy circumstanced, as it Coiuiti>y.j than ■tije big, climatically continent across, the' Tasman .Se.a. Why then does it no,t iJompsVyc bc'.ttQi" ivjt'h Australia on alt pxajiiiilairqn of -\r,y tional balancc-rsheetsl : .N ; d ; t fie'tiaiftp the people are, less; industr/jesusy. :rior because the legistetipir is. of ii irt.ii.ch worse tendency.; bii.t. simply ■because it was unfortuuatc!: , .eno,}ig]i. to- .tyqcQmc .the prey of - it., political , '■'■.spoils'-' party which for pavty p:» : i:pqs ; es' lifls wasted millions , oTtftfe. and prejudiced ■the. rfatipnal- fcrecljt. Happily the cbiintvy is' {#■ liatio-c so well circumstanced that it" cfi-n----shako off the effects :Si;en of rnanj years of acute:misgoycrnifteht, " ''"''