The Evening Star THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1873.

Evening Star, Issue 3307, 25 September 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1873.

Events have followed each other so rapidly in Parliament, and the proceedings arc of so extraordinary a (diameter, that it is almost impossible to follow them, or to unravel the tangled threads that connect them with each other. The action taken by the Legislative Council has led to these desultory and disjointed proceedings. It has completely deranged the connected plan prepared and organised by the Government, and has led to a scramble by the Provinces, lest the session should pass without opportunity of securing moans to carry out necessary works. The difficulty now is to say what is to be the future position of the Provinces to the General Government, so far as public works are concerned. The Provincial Loans Bill, rejected by the Council, laid down a specific principle, easily recognised, and in our estimation sound and practical. It is asserted by its opponents that it involved a departure from the system laid down by the Public Works and Immigration Act and Loans Consolidation Act. That by these it was provided that all loans for public works should be obtained through the General Government only. That subsequent experience has shown the difficulty of maintaining that position affords sufficient reason why a modification of it should take place. This difficulty has manifested itself in a variety of ways, and as we have before pointed out was attempted to bo remedied by other measures which were rejected by the Council ; but latterly it has become intensified in proportion to the demand for the construction of railways in different parts of the Colony. It has been found that so great a pressure could be brought to bear upon an Executive by combinations of members, that administration would be impossible

unless upon such terms as would tend ultimately to utter confusion. The endeavor of the Government has, therefore, been to divide that it may rule equitably ; to devise a scheme by which those who received the benefit should pay in case of need for works made in their own interest, and to provide that those that lend should have ample local security, so that neither additional, Provincial, nor general taxation should be needed. That this would have been the result of the Provincial Loans Bill had it been allowed to pass, there can be no doubt. But it would have had another and a very beneficial effect. Mr Tolmie, Sir F. I). Bell, and many members of the Legislative Council profess to have a mighty regard for the interests of lenders. Mr Tolmie seems absolutely aghast at the prospect of Provincial borrowing, and thinks we are going “too fast.” Yet strange to say, these gentlemen, apparently unknown to themselves, are proposing the very plan to send us on faster. One objection prominently brought out raised by the Council, or adopted by them, and urged by the timid and un-business-like men who co-incide with them is that the works themselves, on the terms proposed by the Government, would not be sufficient security on which to obtain a loan, and that the Provincial revenues shall form a collateral security upon which lenders may ultimately fall back. Now this is precisely what the public should object to : it is precisely what the Government desires to avoid. Provincial revenue was intended to be intact, and the work itself, or the land, or dues, or whatever might be set aside as security, was to bo the only property on which money was to be advanced. The effect of such a system must be selfevident to all who are unprejudiced : it would have been the very best check to reckless borrowing. It is very strange what sympathy Mr Tolmie and his friends have with those who have money to lend, and what a number of safeguards they would interpose, in orderto secure their interest. Wehave no objection in the world to their being absolutely secure, but it seems never to have struck these sapient legislators that capitalists can always take care of themselves by not advancing money on doubtful securities. Any Government fulfils its duties when it prescribes that persons lending money shall have the full benefit of the security on which it was advanced. To ask it to give its own guarantee in addition is to place all securities, good, bad, and indifferent on an equal footing, and thus to induce the very evils of indiscriminate borrowing, which the Premier has so long sought to check. When public men gravely tell us that such a multiplication of alternative guarantees are necessary in favor of public creditors, and that without them money could not be obtained, they should tell us whether they wish men to believe that property being pledged by the Government or under its sanction becomes more risky than in private hands. Usually the contrary is imagined ; and should they reply its intrinsic value cannot be altered, no matter in whose possession it happens to be, we can point to railways, dwelling-houses, mines, ships, insurance companies, banks, and the ten thousand different investments that have but to show a fair prospect of returning good interest, to induce capitalists to invest to any reasonable and sometimes to a veiy unreasonable amount. Is there any good reason then why a dock, a railway, or a tramway should not equally command a loan ? The fact is the class of men who have shown such obstructive power either do not wish the network of branch railways to be completed, or that it shall be done at general and not local expense ; so that instead of bearing their fair share in the cost of improving their own estates, they have decreed, if done at all, it shall be borne by the public. To save themselves in this matter, therefore, they perpetuate all the evils of logrolling, both in the General and Provincial Governments.