THE PREMIER'S PROGRESS REPORT. Where are the Pessimists?

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 81, 18 January 1902, Page 8

THE PREMIER'S PROGRESS REPORT. Where are the Pessimists?

THE prophets of evil omen are a very persistent race m New Zealand. Time after time their predictions are falsified by events, but they trip cheerfully forward to the public stage all the same, and sketch out a fresh catalogue of calamities. So the game has gone steadily on for the last ten years. Each recurrent season we have been assured by the doleful Jeremiahs, who can discern no good thing in a Liberal Administration or in a Seddon regime, that the colony was galloping to a deficit, rushing headlong to ruin, vhat prices and land values were falling, and awfully bad times lay straight ahead. • ♦ ♦ And yet, all the time the colony has been making amazing progress, and prospering to a degree entirely without parallel in its previous history. During the last few months the story has been dinned more confidently than ever into the ears of the public that the years of plenty were over at last, and that the longexpected series of lean seasons, hard times, and severe trials was now setting in. It was, at any rate, a piausible forecast this time, for the low prices of our staples in the world's markets, and the falling off in our Australian exports by reason of the new Federal tariff invested it with the colour of reality. • • • But the publication of the revenue returns of the colony for the last nine months, and the Premier's speech at Newtown the other iK o ht, have shown how little cause there is for the fears which the pessimists have been busy propagating. While these wiseacres have been proclaiming a shortage in the revenue, the receipts have been mounting up un*il, for the nine months ended on December 31st, they have risen by £189,000 beyond the high -water mark of the similar period in the previous year. The Government, in their Estimates, provided for some fal'ing-off m revenue, but, as a matter of fact, they have a surplus of £200 000, and now the Premier is ah!° to announce that he anticipates a surpUis of at least a quarter of a million by the end of the financial year. • • • \V" have not the slifhtrst doubt he will omt it too, for Kin^ Dick is

too shrewd a statesman to promise mere than he hopes to achieve Look around, and note the condition of tne colony to-day, after eleven years of that socialistic legislation which was going to engulf the colony in disaster. Poverty seems to be non-ex-istent in the land. During the past holiday season the entire population appeared to give itself up to enjoyment. The people are contented and happy, trade is expanding, commerce thrives, and, as the Premier aptly observed, "No one able and willing to work need want a bed or a meal in this country." ♦ » • It is all very well to make prudent preparation for dirty weather, but there is no sense in squealing before you are hurt. And, with a surplus of £200,000 in hand— realised, mind you, after making all sorts of concessions and remissions in taxation to the people — we can go cheerfully forward to cope with events as they arise. Evidently, King Dick will be able to trip Home with a light heart for the Coronation.