THE PROVINCIAL DEBTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 121, 13 June 1868, Page 3

THE PROVINCIAL DEBTS.

Since our last we have discovered that some inaccuracies had crept into the statement in our last, as to the amount in which the several Provinces and the Colony, were indebted, and have therefore reproduced the following table, which may be relied upon. The Interest and Sinking Funds are added together; the former ranges from 6 to 10, and the latter from 2 to 7 per cent, per annum :

—Besides the Civil List, Services, Colonial, and Provincially charged, &c.! The pic ture is something dreadful to contemplate. The merging of all these sums into one common fund—or, in other words, the Consolidation of the Loans, and the mass of debt assumed by the Assembly as a Colonial debt, according to the Canterbury plan, and what is meant by doing away with the Provinces—would be rather a costly joke for our contemporary to make merry and “ rejoice” about. We would just ask—Does any man, in this Province at least, and in his sober senses, believe that the disintegration of the Provinces is desirable after comparing these astounding figures ]

Provinces. Owes. Interest. Canterbury ... .£•830,000 ■£’62,600 Otago 050,000 51,500 Auckland 500,000 40,000 Wellington 155,000 15,000 Nelson 41,500 4,150 Taranaki 75,000 7,250 Southland ... 200,00® 23,200 Hawkes Bay 60,000 4,800 Marlborough 7,500 750 2,600,000 209,250 Gen. Govt owes 3,910,000 say 267,600 6,510,000 476,750 Add Panama subsidy 55,000 And Isthmus charges 15,000 Total annual indebtedness ... £546,750