The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1894. BANK OF NEW ZEALAND LEGISLATION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 17, 20 July 1894, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1894. BANK OF NEW ZEALAND LEGISLATION.

We explained yesterday the main reason for the amendment of the Bank of New Zealand Share Guarantee Bill, which has now passed through all its stages. To-day we learn that action has already been taken in London, and the success of the guaranteed loan is assured. But now that the Bank is saved, and a widespread disaster to the Colony averted, we may, without fear of being charged with unpatriotic motives, freely discuss the position in regard to the responsibility which the colonists of New Zealand, through their representatives, have assumed. The two most important questions are : (first) What is the real position of the Bank of New Zealand, both per sc and in its relation to the Assets Company'? and (secondly) What is the intended destination of the second million of money, to be raised under the Colonial Guarantee 1 On both thess points the electors of the Colony have now every right to receive the fullest information it is possible to give them, and the representatives of the taxpayers should not restcontent with the mere assurance of the Government that " it is all right." When New Zealand was prostrated by long years of Maori warfare ; its Tre asury depleted by the exhausting struggle ; its garrison of British troops suddenly recalled, the Colony was left with empty purse and no credit to repair damages and continue the struggle alone. At this crisis the English Government was appealed to for its guarantee to a million loan to help the Colony to recover its position. The situation was desperate, and that it was so was known to every member of the British Parliament. Yet it was only after long debate, fierce opposition, and the fullest information afforded as to the uses to which the money was to be put, that the wealthiest country in the world reluctantly afforded that comparatively small assistance to save this important Colony from inevitable disaster. Yet here in New Zealand our Government, with the light-hearted assurance that " it is all right," forces its obedient majority to back a little Bill for the Bank of New Zealand to the extent of a trifle of two millions, without vouchsafing any information by which the Colony can judge the nature of the risk it is underwriting, and absolutely refusing to allow the representatives of the people any voice in the investment of the second million, which, it is affirmed, is not required for immediate use, but is simply to be used as a reserve fund in order that public confidence may be fully restored and absolute security afforded to the present and tutu re depositors of the Bank. We believe, as the Colonial Teasurer himself suggests, that to maintain the Bank in an unassailable position this money should he invested in British consols, or, if possible, in some equally liquid security. But while acknowledging this the Treasurer for- shadows its probiil)le investment in some undefined securities in New Zealand, although everyone, who knows anything about the uses of borrowed money in New Z aland, knows there are no investments uhjch can, like the British consols, be convert^ into gold to meet a. sudden demand. The polony has a . i^ht to be satisfied that tJio fata] error which brought the Bank of New ■.ftii and to its last gasp shall not be ef><-ated by making any addition to c volume of unrealizable landed purities which the Bank and its ji up &e-t win sister, the Assets Company, still hold, and in which probably ihe whole or more than the whole of he paid'Up capital of the Bank is licet ually locked up.