THE DEPRESSION AND ITS CAUSE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1715, 22 May 1886, Page 2

THE DEPRESSION AND ITS CAUSE.

'The Australasian says :-r-Sir: Julius Yogel, the New Zealand Treasurer,, talks about borrowing like a political gambler, whoj_ares only for the immediate pre-sont-r-the poor presenkof his own waning •dav-j-b-t Mr Stout, the Premier, deals with" public aff airs like a man of business; In his speech at Invefca'rgill Mr Stout spoke much common ".sense.. .The tim'haa nearly arrived, m his opinion,wlieri the colony, must begin to edge off. m borrowing. New Zealand is loaded with a public debt, which is not remunerative like the Victorian or -the New South Wales loans, but entails a heavy annual charge on the revenue. Mr Stout will have none of Sir George Grey's 3f fads" for buying ap the estates af private owners and settling people artificially On the land. Nor will he listen fpjr_ a moment to the demand ot another class of raddipJts A^d»4ftWsyTKe colony can be _jp«deTJl , Bsperous by issuing State bank "^loqtes. Mr Stout will not allow for a moment that the cure for the. depression can be supplied by legislation. The depression will pass away when the units of which the general community is made up are again square m their finances; for what does a depression moan but that so many of us have overrun the con stable, exhausted our resources, and got into debt ? And who feel the bad times first and most severely? The classes among 'whom thrift is conspicuously wanting— the peojple who spend all thenearnings as they go along, laying, aside . nothing for a rainy day. As a rule the , Anglo-Saxon is thriftless or reckless of the^ m'brro'w.' He is enterprising and hopeful, and advances by bound?. Closefistedrie's's is the peculiarity of* the few, ■. whom the many despise ; yet, if it were not for the saving prespensity of the few every drought would reduce the people to starvation. It is computed that notwithstanding the vast wealth which hasbeen stored up m England and America, a year's idleness would exhaust it to- the last penny. In Oriental countries the people perish by thousands when the crops fail or the streams run dry, because they live like the grasshopper, instead of the ant. - ■ - ' •