True Remedy for Depression

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 112, 19 March 1892, Page 4

True Remedy for Depression

The history of these colonies (says the ' Sydney 31 orning Herald') presents us with, an intructive leading case on the subject of depressions, and their true.not sham, remedy. There is no colony whish has had to endure so long and severe a depression as that which closed in, over New Zealand about a dozen years ago. That depression was preceded by a period of unexample prosperity', or what was regarded as such. Money was plentiful, employment abundant, business brisk, I and population rapidly advaucii:{r. ' No one now refuses to recognise the true cause of this period o f " expansion and <; prosperity. " It was all duo to the large ex|>emliture of borrowed money. Thn time came when this had to 'jp stopped, ano at once the depression ser in Jt was some time before the co'ony grew to distinctly recognise tin; course to pursue tv extricate itsell from tin's depression and unjirosjiprity. It i- entit'ed to tho credit, when it saw this cour-e, of steadfastly adhering to ir, in spite of the attempts made to prescribe the i cause of the evil ns its cure. 'Ihcre are few case* of a country so resolutely accepting rh> condition of hard labor, frugality, and severe abstention from debt and extravagance as did New Zealand during- the years which have a* last conducted it to better forlunes. The people of the colony turned from the quack remedies of more borrowing for pur-: poses of inflation, and set themselves to conquer their depression by the industrious development of their native resources. They turned to the land, and the land responded, as it never fails to respond to the summons of industry. One great new in dustry especially — that of the export of frozen meat — has so grown up as to give that item the .second place in the list of exports, growing within teD years from nothing to over a million poun ds a year. The result of these labors has been that the colony in the two years 1889-90 exported to the amount of six and a-half millions in exceps of its imports — a condition of commercial soundness which it would be difficult to match. William Pitt once spoke of England having " sayed Uereelfby her exertions, and saved Europe by her example." Similarily we may say that New Zealand, in extricating herself from her embarrassments, has shown us all the way and the only way, by which true prosperity can be regained. Any devices for continuing borrowing under any disguise whatever for purposes of expenditure, to create employment and provide wages, can but alleviate the difficulty of to-day by entailing on us a sure and intensified difficulty to-morrow.