Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, SEPT. 22, 1892. Taking it all Back.

Manawatu Herald, 22 September 1892, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, SEPT. 22, 1892. Taking it all Back.

In the pleasant month of June the Colonial Treasurer made his Financial Statement to the House of Representatives. It was a picturesque statement abounding in references to the past absurd soft treatment of outside capitalists, and the urgent necessity there existed for assisting the local capitalists to secure an opportunity of lending the Government, of which the Colonial Treasurer is the Premier, the monsy they dreaded to trust to other persons keeping. The Treasurer assured his hearers that he had given careful consideration to the relation in which insurance companies, whose shareholders reside mainly in other countries, stand to those which have their head-quarters and shareholders in the Colony, atld billy cm their account, presumably, by the preface, he proposed that, as a guarantee of good faith, all the companies that are in the former category should make a deposit of a certain sum of money in the Public Trnst Office, upon which they will receive interest at four per cent. In the case of life offices, the amount he proposed for each is £25,000, and fire offices £10,000. The Treasure*, though he considered no valid objection could be talctn to this proposal, which would place a nice round sum at the disposal of the Government at a low rate of interest, also urged his followers to endorse his aotion by quoting some remarks from the London Standard^ which, he regretted, were not absolutely unfounded, and which described the colonists as " a community whose very life is- jobbed away on the Stock Exchange with no more thought than if it were so much hemp." He further remarked "if Parliament is resolutely determined to remove every trace of the charges contained in the indictment it has it in its power to do so. It may, in spite of every possible resistance, release the land which is still in the grasp of speculators ; it may commence to erect the structure of our financial independence, and at length restore to the people their heritage, free from tha hand of the gpoiler."

After reading these heroic words of the great liberal leader of the day, it comes as a sharp shock to read the following cablegram from London, viz : — •' Mr Ballance's withdrawal of the demand fov cash security deposits from foreign insurance companies doing business in New Zea land, has given g»*eat satisfaction in financial circles." It will be interesting to know, when the Treasurer chooses to inform Parliament of the alteration in his Financial proposals, which he has not thought fit to do yet, why this " guarantee of good faith " has been abandoned when he considered, only in June last, that it was " a measure of precaution in case of some of the smaller ones, and of fairness to all ;" and why our protectors have refused to free us " from the hand of the spoiler, 1 ' The Government ha c apparently, in a liberal manner, taken it all back !