THE “AUSTRALASIAN” ON NEW ZEALAND FINANCES.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1910, 8 April 1880, Page 3

THE “AUSTRALASIAN” ON NEW ZEALAND FINANCES.

Referring to the financial position of this colony the “Australasian” makes the following remarks The deplorable state of muddle into which the finances of New Zealand were reduced by the mismanagement of Sir George Grey becomes more and more apparent as time passes on. The latest news is that the Colonial Treasurer has been obliged to issue £200,000 more of deficiency bills, making the amount issued during the current year £1,000,000 sterling, and power has been taken to issue £50,000 more if necessary during the present month. The financial year closes on March 31st, and it is believed that the revenue will fall short of the cautious estimates of Major Atkinson by £300,000, against which it is hoped that the reductions of expenditure will make a saving of £IOO,OOO. It will be remembered that when Major Atkinson made his budget statement about five months ago, ho was bitterly accused by the Greyite party of unpatriotic conduct in wilfully depreciating the financial position of the colony. The statement made was indeed a gloomy one, and one which, revealing as it did a deficit of a million on the current year, it has perhaps never fallen to the lot of a treasurer in these colonies to have to make. But unhappily the truth is still more gloomy than the anticipation, and the most_ unfavorable expectations of Major Atkinson have been more than realised. It is quite possible that the revelation took the late Ministers as much by surprise as it did the country. There is no evidence that Sir George Grey had ever given any thought or attention to the financial position of the country. As his ends were wholly factious ones, and as no political capital of the kind he sought was to be made by grappling with the difficult subject of the finances, Sir George Grey just allowed them to “slide.” And the result was that they did slide a long way. Even since his retirement from office, when Sir George Grey has spoken on the subject, it has been only to show that he was either utterly indifferent or ignorant with regard to the question. There seems to be an impression with him and his supporters that it is, after all, only a matter of figures, and that, as one Greyite member observed in the Budget debate, the Treasurer could have shown a surplus as easily as a deficit had ho wished to do so. It is easy to see how our demagogic party in these colonies, when called to power, always either breaks down on finance or leaves a legacy of difficulty to those who come after. In financial matters they have to deal with stern realities which gassy rhetoric cannot at all alter. They have learned of this sort; they fail, and the country calls in abler men. It is fortunate for New Zealand —and, indeed, as the case is at present- —that the country was wise in time, and did not, by giving Sir George Grey a new lease of power, prepare the financial catastrophe which nothing could then have averted.