THE LATE GOVERNMENT’S FINANCE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1770, 22 October 1879, Page 3

THE LATE GOVERNMENT’S FINANCE.

[By Tbleqeaph.] WELLINGTON, October 21. The return laid on the table by the Colonial Treasurer does not specify the public works on which the loan has been spent, or pledged in defiance of the vote of the Houee, nor does it even distinguish the portion spent or liability incurred for works authorised by the House ; but it shows the fact that, notwithstanding the positive vote of the late House, that the late Government was not to touch the five million loan, they have, without knowing whether it can bo raised or not, entered; into engagements which commit the colony to the direction in which nearly the whole of it must go. Contracts are entered into which will take no less than £3,306,000 out of the five million—so little do Mr Macandrow or his colleagues care about the votes of the Houee or the extreme danger to the colony in committing it to such enormous liabilities without knowing whether the money will bo raised or not. In lound numbers, £505,000 of the new loan was spent before the 30th of last September, £734,000 was pledged before the end of October, and £921,000 during the last six months of the financial year. Sir George Grey will say :—“ This is nothing but what every one knew, and nothing but what is quite right,” and his followers seem to be quite contented with the incomprehensible, unprecedented impudence of the late despotism, calling itself above all control from the people’s representatives, and even despising the common dictates of ordinary and necessary prudence that would control most dictators. Add to this that the House seems to think there is no great harm in continuing a Government that makes no provision to keep the revenue of the colony up to its expsnditure, within a million a year, or some trifle of that sort, and I can see nothing before us but that the credit of New Zealand must soon bo placed on 'a level with that of Egypt or Turkey.