The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1887. Capital

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 144, 11 June 1887, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1887. Capital

It is rapidly becoming an article of faith with many of the politicians of the day, that the introduction of Capital into the country is not only a boon in itself but a remedy for all the ills that a young colony ia heir to. Like many other articles of faith, this one is accepted without analysis, consideration, or the mildest calculation of its basis or foundation. We do not dispute that capital is a most excellent thing, Jworthy of our most profound respect ; but only when it is in an active state, legitimately employed by its owner in reproductive works such as manufactures, agriculture, shipping or other industries which give the artisan or laboring classes means whereby they can earn a comfortable livlihood. The Capital of the politician is quite a different thing to this. It appears under another guise or name and is called a Loan. It has an unsubstantiality which makes it somewhat like the " baseless fabric of a vision" very pleasant while it lasts, but unlike it in leaving behind a ponderosity of obligations equally surprising as unpleasant. As follows other indulgences in illigetimate pleasures, a day of reckoning — in fact many sad days — «ome when the cost must be counted, and the bitter cup of repentance drained to the very dregs. When a mam spends or loses his own money he has only himself to consider ; but when as a borrower ho loses that which he has borrowed he has to meet an unrelenting "other" who is apt sometimes to be difficult of mauagement. As with a private individual so with a colony. New Zealand has suffered from plethora of borrowed money squandered in socalled reproductive public works, and is now suffering from a consequent depletion in the form of heavy drafts to pay interest. The day of repentance has yet to come we fear — but the creditor at Home does not look with a very frieudly eye on the colony — even though her current indebtedness is liquidated wi}h praiseworthy regularity. What we really want to make this colony more prosperous is an influx of men of capital, with the energy and brains to employ it for their own benefit. Flooding the country with money to be lent on mortgages, the interest from which is spent in the majority of cases, far from the land where it is earned, is a positive evil. It does good to no one except the lender. But if the interest is spent and so retained in the country, the fact assumes a new and favorable aspect because the capitals therefore necessarily owned in the country is practically increased by the amount it earns, while in the first instance the more it earns the greater the drain on the actual or nominal capital employed. The wealth of England has not been created bo much by her commerce as by the enormous sums she has been able to draw from every nation in the world by interest on loans made ia one form or another. Her own national debt is due to her inhabitants, therefore She does not contribute to the the wealth of other nations by having to use foreign capital. As soon as this colony can check the outflow of money in payment of interest on loans, from that day will begin an era of universal prosperity which will raise it to that elevation its splendid agricultural and mineral resources make it so worthy to attain.