SIR JULIUS VOGEL AT WELLINGTON.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1261, 30 April 1886, Page 3

SIR JULIUS VOGEL AT WELLINGTON.

■—♦— We take the following extract* from the ‘ Otago Daily Times.* THE PRESENT POSITION 01 THE COLONY. ' It suffered greatly from "detraction for political purposes. It also suffered from diminished enterprise and employment of the people, consequent up in a panic started by the late Government and increase ! by heavy falls of the principal staples—wortl and wheat. It would be difficult to state how tar the fall was permanent. Wool paid well enough at present prices if the price of land was not too high. The prospects of a rise depended upon other countries being able to profitably produce at the present prices. In Australia they had heavy land carriage aad drought to contend with. In the Argentine they had heavy.land carriage besides heavy export duties and high rates of interest. The fall had brought on a lasting advantage in the reduction of the rate of interest. He estimated that daring the last two years the money-lending institutions, merchants, and others had" reduced the amount of interest to the extent of L 200,000 per annum. This was so much gain to the colony at the expense of Home investors. Seeing how the rate of interest had fallen at. Home and the profits made in the past, Home investors, he thought, would be quite satisfied with the reduction. They must also recollect that if their exports were of less value, their imports came to them at a less cost. He had had a calculation made of the value of the exports and imports of ISBS at the values which prevailed in 1880. He found that under the values of 1880 the exports of 1885 would have been more valuable by nearly a million. It was shown by the values entered at the customs that there was a loss, in fact, of over 14 per cent The imports by a like calculation, showed a saving of over a million ; and, curiously, this also represented 14 per cent, as a saving in price. But taking the volume of the imports and exports into consideration, there was a saving of L 1,000,000, owing to the ira orts being larger in amount than the export between the two falls. Thus someone had benefited by the evil of diminished employment. The speaker then urged that there was great misapprehension onth« subject of THRIFT and its effect upon the population. There was a disposition to look upon the economy forced upon people by losses as an exercise of thrift and calculated to remove the depression. Forced economy was not thrift They would not say a man was of active habits because he ran away from a mad dog. Far from the diminished expenditure ''being the cure for the depression, it was one of its effects, a"d intensified the depression by reducing the amount of employment. Sir Julius "Vogel illustrated this, and ridiculed Major Atkinson's idea that ha (an ex Minister) should appear in a blue shirt. It was an extremely silly remark, because it was meant to illustrate that men should work eaoh on his own account To minimise human labor was for the service of the human race. Hnterprise and confidence were required in the Colony now. Would it be a good thing, Sir Julius asked, to preach to a village full of poor people on the evils of gluttony, or to lecture on the virtue of being abstemious in expenditure to persons who were forced to it whether they liked it or no ? It was like preaching the good effects of abstinence to a boatload of shipwrecked people deprived of food for ten days. The Government adhered to tho policy of BORROWING FOB RAILWAYS and lessening the expenditure of borrowed money on other purposes. The four points be had laid down in Auckland were substantially the same as those laid down in the (Jovernor’a Speech in l s ß4. Great misconception existed on the subject of private borrowing. The whole system of tho colonisation of the Australasian colonies had depended on obtaining from Great Britain its surplus capital and surplus population. Private borrowing meant an introduction of capital not at the risk of the community but of the borrower themselves. The chairman of the Bank of Australasia had stated that he estimated that 300 millions had been lent in these colocies on mortgages. 1 j Far from it being the case that New Zca- ’ laud bad a largo share of it, she had much 1 less than one tenth, for it was shown that . the mortgages of the colony amounted to 30 millions, of which a large amount was made from private capital within the colony, i Ho then read an extract from an article by i tho celebrated statistician Mr Mulhall, in . | which tliatdistinguish jd authority said that • j tho whole succors of the Australian colonies i; depended upon their having Imrrowod both i for private and public purposes so largely. I | “The Australian, revenues," Mr Mulhall ■ 1 said, “ ip 1880 wqre doable the revenue of r G rest Britain jui Lord Ciuthanj’s time* and

double that of the United, States down to the year 1860. “ These ” said Mr Mul. hall, “are stupendous fads' that nobody takes any note of’’; while every penny-a-liner comments now and then' upon the wonderful discovery tuat the Australians owe L4O per head. It never occurs to the commentators that Baron Rothschild may owe LIOO.OOO as easily as a person less wealthy can LIOO. His grand' object was to enable the revenue to bear its proper expenditure, and not to be mixed up as it had with borrowed money. The finances now were in a good position, and owing to the fall in the value of goods the customs taxation never rested lighter on the people. If Major Atkinson came into office, he would find the finances out of the muddle in which he left them. .They did not want to rob the civil service ; they did • not require to lecture people who found economy necessary because of "-the'reduced value of wool and whmt. • They wanted to look at the subject. intelligently. Here was the position : Labor was plentiful; money was cheap. They should mike their railways, pnsh on settlement, and encourage new industries. The’r main dependencies had been hitherto on imported industries, especially the industry of wool production. They had. so to speak, a treasure ready to be realised in the timber, coal, and gold on and under the land and the fish with which the seas swarmed. If a fraction of the capital which had been spent in-developing the wool industry .had been expended on the industries he had naraed, : the wealth of the country would be*immensely greater than it was at present. Tbiee hundred millions of private borrowing was in the maj >r part devoted to wool. It might he asked why was such encouragement civen to-that industry. The answer was that at first it was the only, industry almost on a large scale suitable to Australia. But the peculiar charm of the wool industry was the en trraous commissions which were hidden tal to its development. When lie first came to New Zealand the stock agents and merchants used to charge 10 per cent, interest and 2J per cent, commission every three months for renewing the Bibs. Then they had commissions in connection with loans on the security of the wool on the hick of the sheep, on freight, on disposal at Homo ; and altogether much ns the producers of wool may have profited, the Homo industry and their agents had the best share of the benefit. These charges had long since been reduced, and at each period of the depression the reductions were ohiffly hrougnh about As he had already said, interest during the present fall had been reduced vary largely. He mentioned these fids because he'felt convinced that New Zealand offered inducements to other industries and was capable of producing other products than wool, and that it was most important to develop these. He felt most acutely' that New Zealand was unduly affected by the existing depression elsewhere—that, indeed, it ought reallv benefit by its world* wide character. What was the. depression in this Colony to that of Ragland, with land falling in value, forms nnletahle, and manufactures closing ? Wha f wa” it compared to that of New South Wales. South Australia, and Queensland, wh'.re the drought affected them far more than the fall in wool, and where the reduction on the.value of property was much greater. There was scarcely a country in the world without, thousands of people asking whore they should take the capita! they had remaining and their brains and sinews. He said to. them that no land offered creator indneements thin New Zealand. Thsy might tauo the Wellington district alone and employ half a million of people and 1.5,000*0110 of cap Pal in utilising its forests and putting itsland into cultiva tion. There was not a district in the colony which would not stand critical examination —magnificent land, splendid forests, gold and other minerals, and the sea teaming with fish. What nobler land did they want ? And to tell the people to show th-ir gratitude by shunning enterprise and going undressed was folly and a crime. He had been twenty-five years in New Zealand, with comparatively rhort abs-nees, and ho had started the first daily newspaper in the colony and had been foremost in encouraging everything calculated to unfold the resources of the colony. He had probably not much longer to live, but to the last ho would raise his voice and declare his undiminished conviction that the col nists were justified in developing to the utmost for themselves a”d their successors the grandest lands for its size on the face of the globe.