Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1864.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IV, Issue 195, 7 October 1864, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1864.

The late news from England must have rather disconcerted our provincial and other financiers, so exceedingly free with their borrowing schemes. Money, it would seem, is not forthcoming, upon the strength of the questionable security of the remnants of the Crown Lands, and upon the probable conquests to be made from the Maoris. The English capitalist is loth to unloose his pursestrings for the benefit of his Colonial brethren, just at present, at all events. And not much wonder either. The most cautious of men is the monied man, and we make no doubt that those gentlemen look with much suspicion upon a young community which ought by rights to be well-to-do in the world, having become possessed of a large landed estate but a few years ago, seeking at so early a date to borrow large sums of money. If, then, the securities offered by the Colony and backed by the English Government, are but slowly and indifferently taker Cup, what will be the fate of the Provincial loan of Hawke’s Bay ? Where now is the boasted wisdom of our present Provincial Government, based, as it would seem that wisdom is, entirely on the success or non success of that money-bor-rowing scheme ? Mone} is the equivalent for, if not exactly the same thing as, wisdom, and as long as a Provincial Government has lots of moneyjmo matter when or how got, so long will that Government enjoy a delightful reputation for wisdom and all manner of virtue. As in the case of private individuals, so in the case of Provincial and other Governments, so long as they have money to spend they will be applauded to the echo, and every donkey they meet with will give a brotherly bray in recognition of the striking family likeness which exists between them. We however, offer our congratulations to the Province of Hawke’s Bay, as having for the present at all events escaped the load which was being made ready for their backs. A very small minority of the Provincial Council objected to the Loan Bill, and were, of course, hooted; but at the time we said that, because those gentlemen were in the minority, that fact was by no manner of means to betaken as a proof that they were in the wrong, but rather, as the Provincial Council is composed, of their being in the right. Our Provincial Council partakes largely of the sheepy element; and the gentlemen who sit there have so long entirely associated themselves and their ideas with sheep that it is hardly possible for them to think or do other than sheep do. Let but the bell-wether for the time being (D. M’Lcan. Esq., at present) go off in any given direction, and they all follow by a sort of animal instinct rather than as the result of any reasoning faculty. The attempt to raise money upon the tattered and almost worthless fragments of our once splendid estate, was, in our opinion, an exceedingly questionable proceeding. We remember well that when Fitz Gerald, a far more clever and much more deeply thinking man than both M’Lean

and Ormond put together, suggested anything, no matter what the opposition of John Ormond, J.P. was as certain as his existence. When Fitz attempted some wise and beneficial measures for the better administration of the Waste Lands, the most deadly and bitter opponent was J. D. 0., J.P., &c.—in fact that gent ever been an incubus on this Province, supporting a few, playing into the hands of a few, selling the lands to a few, spending the money for the improvement of those lands by roads and other public works for the benefit of that few—these have been the indications, palpable and plain, of the wisdom of the present de facto ruler of this Province. His money-borrowing scheme, that financial bubble, has, we sincerely trust, burst, and it is to be hoped that we shall hear nothing more of such foolish legislation. If these good people can do nothing better for us than they have done up to this date, in spite of the laudation of the store-selling fraternity and shepherds generally, the sooner they move on the better for us all.