Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 14 February 1924, Page 2

Tlir public debt; of New Zealand is equal to about £2OO per capita, and, in last year’s Budget, the Commonweull.l debt was placed at £879,303,040 equal to about £lsl per head, then tlcrc are the debts of the several States, and the municipalities and local bodies. An ordinary individual with

Midi iuml of dent would think twice before incurring further liabilities, but the average New Zealand and Australian politician, s»yS the Mercantile Gazette, has no qualms about piling up deb; and still more debt on the community. New Zealanders arc ordinary people, but in their corporate capacity they appear not to be concerned with the necessity for ceasing to borrow, but arc keen about the best means oi borrowing money, and they are ready 'n discuss all the expedients by which it may be made to appear that borrowing money is as useful as earning it. Why is there difference between people us individuals and people in the mass? An Australian paper says: ‘•The explanation is that public borrowing i.s a political means of earning popularity or for warding off unpopularity'. With money to spend, a politician, n group of thorn, or a Parliament- of them, can do much of that which is most important to them. No treasurer has yet had to arrange for the repayment or even for the conversion df the loan which he was instrumental in floating. 11 a private individual could raise and spend loan money which some indefinite person in the indefinite future had to icpay. he would succumb to the temptation to borrow, even as the politician succumbs. Not having these opportunities, tne individual is compulsorily prudent. The endeavour should he for a means to impose eompulsoiy prudence oil politicians.’’

Ai'Uopox the financial problems ahead a gentleman connected with a large mercantile concern, stated, to a Christchurch interview, that the action ol tin Australian Government would lend to cause a higher rate of interest, as it would absorb internal capital. If Mr Massey Was able to borrow in New Zealand all the money he required at (5 pet cent., he (the gentleman interviewed' did not know that he would have to pay a great deal in o.xocss of what lie would have to pay if lie went for it to the Old Country, but the serious aspect ol snob iiusinos.s wonli! he that the money borrowed would be New Zealand’s own money, and the result would fie to keep outside money from coming in. Local requirements "ere hound to go up, but he thought that the effect ol tac Australian rates on them would he problematical. Although the dry weather had had a serious effect on teeps and live stock, in quite a milliter of cases the cropping returns ” su’d, he knew, be better than "etc anticipated; so that the shortage there would K in tiii ; respect counter-balanced by tile good prices received for the products. plus those got for the wool. As t i Un> question of fattening lambs, a farmer had summed up tho position lute this, lie thought it would pay him better to sell what lambs he had at the present time, at say, 25s or 2t>s a head as second-grade stock, rather than take the risk of fattening them. I lie prices he would thus receive would give him a chance of buying stores later and fattening them for the higher prices he could expect to receive for such stock.