THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF NEW ZEALAND.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2003, 26 July 1880, Page 4

THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF NEW ZEALAND.

["Pall Mall Budget."J Comments come to hand from New Zealand Hssoited bv the success o£ tho five-million loan introduced at tho end of last, year to tho London money market. These comments when proceeding from persons of prudence and independence are by no means reassuring. The success of tho loan is felt and seen to have saved tho colony from financial oollapse; but it is still uncertain whether it will escape a land puiic or crisis. The total debt of New Zealand now amounts to 28 millions, imposing an annunl charge of £1,400,000 for interest and £116,000 for sinking fund —together, £1,516,000, or £3 8s per head per annum on the small population of 450,000 persons. The railways built by the State may be worth 12 millions, but they are worked at a considerable loss. Abou 1 ; twenty-five now lines of railway are in course of construction ; but the time of opening and the financial results when opened are both uncertain; and in tho meantime, %nd until the earnings of the open and unopen lines fully cover the working expenses and the interest and rinking fund on the money borrowed to build them, the deficit must be supplied by heavier and heavier taxes. The taxes in New Zealand are already muoh heavier than in the neighbouring colonies, to the manifest discouragement of the influx into it of capital and labour. The land sales have fallen off rapidly, and the last budget disclosed a deficit of not less than one million. To meet this in -some degree the ad valorem duties on imported goodß were raised 5 per cent., or to 15 per cent., and several specific duties were advanced. The severe measure in a new colony of a property tax of one penny in the pound on the value of "all property" was also adopted, the tax to be assessed in localities by three "reviewers," and the outcry against the severity and inquisitorial nature of tho tax is already so great as to threaten the defeat of the Hall Ministry. The mania for buying and speculating in land came to a sudden stoppage on the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in the autumn of 1878. The banks had as usual made considerable advances to borrowers supposed to be solvent, and taken as security a lien on the land* purohaeed. These advances are now being rapidly recalled, and there is good reason to believe that the recent aotivity iff the formation in and out of the colony of mortgage and investment companies is closely connected with the desire of the banks to get back their advances on one Bido, and the desire of the borrowers to pay baok the banks with the money of the proposed, and projected companies. When the loan of five millions was floated a few months ago with great success, by virtue of the novel agency of the Bank of England—for we are not aware that the Bank of England had previously appeared in _ the same capacity—an undertaking was given that New Zealand would not appear again as a borrower for at least three years. It is certain beyond all cavil that during theße three years the colony must encounter great financial difficulties. Fortunate seasons may possibly carry it through the peril, but candour compels the admission that, according to present facts and appearances, collapse is quite as probable as success. At all events it is high time that there should bo a cessation of the voluminous, persistent, and barefaced puffing of the "Britain of the Antipodes," not only here ia London but up and dovrn the whole country, not omitting the remotest corners of it. Tho Government and peopleof New Zsaland have had far more of English money than is good for them or for _ub, and they must cow prove by actual remittances that they can pay the interest and sinking fund on the old loans by other means that contracting new ores.