The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Wednesday, April 6, 1864.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 98, 6 April 1864, Page 4

The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Wednesday, April 6, 1864.

On two previous occasions we have referred to subjects affecting the goldfields that will require the attention of the Provincial Council at its next sitting. We were then compelled to leave over some matters that demanded further notice, and we now purpose to conclude the subject in our present igsue. The first item of importance is the question of finance. We believe that a wholesome dread has arisen that we are too rapidly exceeding our revenue. What with the share the General Government do themselves the honor of appropriating, the everlasting demands of Dunedin, the heavy civil service, and a few other little odds and ends, it is not wonderful that the Council should outrun the constable. Under these circumstances, we are prepared to hear of fresh changes, and of j a new combination of parties whose policy will be retrenchment. We will heartily join with them, provided that the revenue is to be equally distributed. As we have already endeavored to show, anew system is necessary: it is folly to continually expend money upon the beautifying and advancement of Dunedin, and expect that the welfare and prosperity of the country is thereby obtained. No doubt 6uch a policy will benefit a few, but it is not a beneficial one for the country at large. The budget this year, as much from this cause as any other, will be looked upon with attention and will command more than an ordinary examination; it will, in fact, have to stand a very severe test. The system of loans, and the mode of expending the revenue of the Province will be thoroughly canvassed, and any attempt to further establish a system of centralization anl its consequent effect—the expenditure of the revenue on the capital of Otago must meet with general disapprobation. It is a most critical period, for the expenditure cannot be sustained without loans, and these do not float. The Council will never, by a selfish narrow-minded view of the matter, get themselves out of the mess they are now in. They are in honor bound to carry out the loans that have been sanctioned previously, though the securities may have been returned unsaleable, from the London market. The Province has therefore to establish its monetary credit, and probably it

will prove a most difficult task to do so. ?ii o efforts have been made to settle the people upon the soil, so that we might be able to present with our loans that best of material guarantees —population and settlement. The Otago loans have instead been offered upon the guarantees of the goldfields and squatterdom, and they have failed " to take" as is the phraseology of the stock exchange. Deservedly, we say they have failed upon both grounds. First, because the goldfields were \ represented as the security to be looked at; while the money raised was intended for objects far removed from them. Secondly, because the attempt to raise loans for the benefit of a few lordly owners of flocks and herds, and the support of an overgrown capital, was not justified. These things were thoroughly understood in that market to which we had recourse to raise money. The chief reason that South Australia has always been able to command the money market at home has been through the knowledge that she possesses a settled agricultural population, the true basis of all national wealth. However, we cannot expect such lessons from this school should be received, and the latest proposal we have heard to make our loans float, to redeem our credit in spite of our rich ( goldfields, is to pledge our lands, or as the word is, "to hypothecate" them to the amount sought to be raised. It is not difficult to fortell the result, or to predict that in the ultimate settlement of the lands of this Province, sheep and wool will eventually reign supreme, if this policy be adopted. If the progress of this colony is to be made dependent upon the results accruing from loans, let us have that fact plainly stated; but do not let us hear anything of pledging the national property while we have an unlimited extent of agricultural land, and rich goldfields to work upon. There is some, thing so repugnant in the word " pledge" that we look to the man that could propound so narrow an idea with suspicion. If the Daily Times likes to advocate these pawnbroking ideas as applicable to the management of the finances of this Province, we have no objection; but we have a strong objection to their being adopted by our legislators. We ask rather for a re-distribution of the revenue raised, less of centralization and its expenditure, for the sale of agricultural lands, the development of the goldfields by means of passable roads, &c., and then we are certain the revenue will be either equal to the demands made upon it, or loans for general purposes will be readily obtained without the necessity of " hypothecating " our lands.