New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4154, 14 July 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1874.

The object Mr. Waterhouse proposes to attain by moving the resolution standing in his name for this afternoon in the Legislative Council is difficult to discern. This resolution is,—"That this Council would see with regret any increase to the general indebtedness of the Colony, except for the purpose of completing undertakings already authorised, until such time as the works now in progress are so far completed as to enable a reliable opinion to be formed as to the capability of the Colony to meet the annual expenditure thereby required, without having recourse to a degree of taxation which might injuriously affect the industrial resources of the Colony." Supposing that the resolution be carried, there is the obvious reply to it that no one is aware of any existing intention on the part of the Government to thus increase tho indebtedness of the Colony. If there be no such intention, all the good that Mr. Waterhouse will have effected will be the somewhat dubious one of delivering a financial speech. Usage compels the presence of tho official Treasurer in the Lower House, and Mr. Waterhouse will have had the satisfaction of presenting the Upper Chamber with an amateur budget. This hypothesis will account to a very large extent for the double delay that his resolution has already experienced. Supposing it to be accurate, the hon. member has deserved all the sympathy that has been extended to him by his colleagues in the Council, and he will be ontitled to a full share of it this afternoon. If he has intended to prove that the Government either has been or is intending to be in the wrong respecting the Public Works policy of the Colony, the self-imposed task of tho dilletante Treasurer is a difficult one. It is not to bo wondered at thafc he required more time in which to hunt up and arrange his statistics. For, we are not to suppose that he bounds his aspirations with merely carrying an abstract resolution as he did the other day respecting the disposal of Crown lands. It will be considered necessary that he should show some cause why he oxpects hon. members to agree to his resolution. They cannot attend merely to convert the chamber of the Council into the room of a debating society. If the drag is to be applied it must be either because the coach is running too rapidly clown the hill, or there is danger that it may do so. The hon. member in speaking to the Address, in reply to tho speech of His Excellency the Governor, gave an intimation of what some of his viowi are on the matter he has taken in hand, and we presume we shall be further enlightened this afternoon.

When speaking in the Council on the Bth instant, Mr. Waterhouso alluded to some Bank returns, which showed the average indebtedness in the Colony to bo £l.O per head, as compared with £2 per head in Victoria. If this indebtedness exist in respect to Banks, we submit that it is a question with which neither the Legislative Council nor tho public has anything whatever to do. Victorian Banking Institutions do a vory large portion of the banking trade of the Colony, and if Melbourne Directors choose to advance individual New Zealanders large sums of money, this must be because they are vory well satisfied with the security —better than with that which they hourly reject in Melbourne. But in any case tho debt is private, not general, as indicated in the terms of the resolution. There is, however, a very obvious objection to the term general indebtedness. It would scarcely apply if used in the case of tha thirty millions of tho population of the United Kingdom, who have a debt of say six hundred millions, representing money spent in disastrous wars. Possibly, but for some of this fighting, England might have been a conquered country, in which case she would not have been so rich as she now is by many hundreds of millions. This is the set-off against tho debt. Inthecase of New Zealand, thepeople, for their indebtedness, can show an amount of real estate, sold and unsold, improvedandunimproved,andalsovastpublic works, as security against their public obligations. When a man owes his banker £IOO, and has goods that he can readily convert into £l5O to discharge the obligation with, it is a misuse of language to say, in a general manner, that he is in debt. Such a statement could only be made by persons whose minds have not been disabused of tho old fiction that money is wealth in a moro poculiar sense than any J other article—an illusion which was '' long powerful enough to overmaster the mind of every politician, both speculative and practical, in Europe." Money, in itself, is a more medium of exchange. Wo may, as a Colony, owe ten millions of money on public account: but what are the assets we have to show for this ? Assots that are perfectly satisfactory to our creditors. They know, and wo know, that for evory pound we owe we can show valuo for a very much larger amount. Our " general indebtedness" is no cause for alarm whilst such is the case. Mr. Waterhouso cannot substantiate his motion, or justify tho Council in accepting it, unless he is propared to vhow that the undoubted and admitted prosperity of the Colony is illusionary, its immigration policy a mistake, and its Public Works likely to prove the revorse of advantageous. The facts showing tho contrary of this to bo the case are overwhelming. The various settlements taking place are in a highly prosperous condition, oven the persons who have bought land on trust aro paying tho instalments readily as theso fallduo, and aro rapidly becoming freehold proprietors. Of course, under such circumstances, tho purchasers in fee simple must bo doing well. Doos Mr. Waterhouso moan to tell us that the mining, manufacturing, and mercantile population is not prospering '! Then, if

the population be yearly added to at a rapid rate, and the incomers become well-doers, with every prospect of doing even better when the means of communication between the miner and the agricultural settlements with the seaboard are opened up, are not these the elements of an abiding prosperity? We trow so. The above is an answer to any allegation respecting the immigration policy of the Colony. In the last allegation Mr. Waterhouse must be called to substantiate, if he can that the public works of the Colony may prove failures ; besides this being exposed to contradiction from world-wide experience, the facts are just the reverse. In Canterbury the Superintendent recently announced a reduction in freights on the railway, in consequence of the excess of income over expenditure. Of course when there shall be a greater length of line open there will be more traffic and a further reduction may be expected. Even on the little Wellington and Hutt line the traffic and receipts have surpassed the most sanguine expectations formed, and instead of there being a probability that when extended to Masterton it will be less remunerative, there is a certainty to the contrary. Mr. Waterhouse may quote the greater annual taxation of each unit of the population than that in some of the Australian Colonies, but this is merely another form of the fallacy we have before alluded to. Theqnestion isnot so much what a man has to pay as what he has to pay with. He can better afford to pay £5 per annum as taxation in New Zealand, where his wages are from 50s. to GOs. per week, than he can 30s. in South Australia, where his wages are from 30s. to 40s. per week. Moreover, here employment is abundant, and there it is scarce. If these things be so, and they are both undeniable and unanswerable, Mr. Waterhouse may rest assured that the prosperity of the Colony will not bo checked, nor its progress retarded by any amount of croaking from him in the Council.