The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JULY 19, 1870.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 168, 19 July 1870, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JULY 1 9, 1870.

From the tenor of the speeches hitherto delivered in the House of Representatives, and from the general tone of the press throughout the colony, it would seem that the - Treasurer's financial scheme, if reduced iv its proportions and presented in a considerably modified form,, would find favor with the country at large. The principle that it is essential to the prosperity of New Zealand that capital and labor should be imported at any cost in order todevelop the resources of the country has to a certain degree been accepted, and the -proposition to largely increase our 4 present debt for the purpose of carrying out this principle seems to be viewed with, less alarm than we should have expected by ; the representatives of the people. It; may be that they are right, and that the, sanguine expectations which have been formed that the revenue of the country will increase in a corresponding ratio with the liabilities with which it is sought to burden it will not be disappointed, but we confess to still entertaining grave doubts on this subject, and we cannot view without serious apprehension the disposition to borrow which seems to prevail to such an extent throughout the colony. >,As Mr. Richmond remarked in the House the other night %< ihe scheme is so .important tbat'it must become a matter of almost life and death to the colony — bankruptcy, disgrace, and ruin on the one LuaJ,.and

prosperity and advancemenf on the' otfeer ." i We roust admit that we cannot see our way to this latter ; alternative^ but : as we have said before the borrowing principle seems to been admitted throughout the colony, and it is therefore-more than ever ! necessary now to enquire into-, and carefully; consider the details of the scheme. With this view we have read with deep interest the masterly speech of Mr. J.C. Richmond on the subject, particularly "that portion of it which has reference to ' the railway scheme. Mr. Richmond institutes a comparison between 'Victoria and New Zealand from which he, arrives at certain conclusions, and; as his figures appear to be correct and his arguments unanswerable we will give them in as condensed a form as possible. After comparing the reveuues of the two colonies and showing that, -that of New Zealand was, without the territorial rlevfniie, at the rate of '£5 10s 6d, and that of Victoria £3 93_4d"per head, he goes ou to argue that, taking the. increase of population in Victoria, between the years 1857 and 1866 as a fa^r basis on which to form an estimate of tne probable population of New Zealand in 1880, we may reasonably expect, supposiug a .very high style of colonization to be carried on in the mean time, to have in that year 420,000 people settled within our. boundaries. - We. arethen asked, . aud fairly so,, to assume that the travelling transport fund of a colony bears some proportion to the population, and, consequently, taking that of Australia | to be 700,000 at- the present times and. of New Zealand, in"l880,to be 420,000, we can estimate what 'the revenue ' from our lines is likely to be. Calculating then the pro- ■ portion that the present, railway reveuuej of Victoria bears to its population, and applying that. as a test to New Zealand in 1880, it may be estimated that in that year our gross railway receipts will amount to £360,000. ■; We then come to the working expenses, and these Mr Richmond, still taking Victorian experience "as a guide, sets down at £575,000, thus leaving a deficit of £15,000,' instead of the handsome profit which Mr. Yogel bad promised. We have necessarily been compelled "to largely < curtail ;Mr. Richmond's .elaborate calculations but we have, we believe, given sufficient to show that the pleasaut. theory that a.> large revenue is to be derived from, the proposed '1500 miles of railway has been completely scattered to the winds.

There is much more in; Mr. Richmond's able speech that is well worthy of attention, but the space at our disposal precludes any further allusion to it to-day ; it is but fair, however., , Jtd him,, in order to show that he was "actuated by no party spirit in making a r speech which was most damaging to Mr.' VogeTs scheme, to give his own reasons for . exposing some of its fallacies. "I have not brought down these figures," he says, " with any desire to discourage the Committee, or throw a wet blanket upon a}l proposals of a general kind for colonization ; but I do not think that anyone will be, doing good service, either to the; House ;o,r the country, who does not put before -the- House precisely the light in which he sees these matters"