The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5360, 1 June 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1878.

Our contemporary the Auckland “Herald” is, at least traditionally,in part accountable for Sir George Grey. The late respected proprietor of that journal was one of the historical three “ people of New Zealand” who had the misfortune to draw the great Pro-Consul from his island home at Kawau, where he lived tacitly respected of all men, and to plunge him into the stormy sea of colonial party politics in which wo now see hirii struggling, and, with the unavailing regret of his old friends, sinking. It is duo to our contemporary to note that its loyalty has been perfect ; no more abject' worshipper of the rising sun of democracy, or more constant and blind adorer of that luminary, in its zenith and in its declination, is to be found in the ranks of the New Zealand Press. This is as it ought to be, and it is a consolation to find that simple journalistic faith has its advantages, and its rewards—iii the shape of the _ uiatnui of advertisements at four shillings an inch— even, as, Mrs. Game would say, “in this earthly spear.” Wo have carefully preserved, and have now before us, a specimen of .the incense which was offered to the popular idol by the “ Herald ” some six months since, which is historically curious. From London, on the 15th December last, Sir Julius Vogel, the Agent-General, telegraphed:— “All the colonial stocks have risen. “New Zealand especially have never “ been so high as they now are. Oon- “ Bolidated fives, 107 ; other fives, 105,j-; “four and a-halfs, 08;/.” , This was of course very good nows; iho war on the continent, and other causes, had diverted: the outflow of capital from “Turks” and “Russians to “Colonials,’’ and had even sent Imperial Consols up to 9W,. Our Auckland contemporary improved tho occasion thus t — . ... “A special telegram convoys a despatch ■“from tho Ageut-Oenejal ju jLondon,

“ which will be read with gratification by “ all colonists. Sir Julius Vogel in- “ forms the Premier of the unpreco- “ dented advance of New Zealand stocks, “ which, when he telegraphed on Saturday “last, had reached 107 for our five per “cent, consolidated debentures. In September the price of these was 101 to 105; “in the end of October they had fallen “to 1031 to 104 k The present news “ therefore shows an increase of 21 to 31 “per cent.: Other five per cent, stock, “ which in October stood at 102|- to 1031, “had risen to 1051, being a satisfactory “advance. Four and a-half had risen | “in the same period. This is the latest “intelligence, and it presents a complete “ contradiction to those arguments which “were offered in Parliament, that the “advent of the new Ministry would have “an adverse influence on .the financial “position of New Zealand on the London “Stock Exchange. The very reverse is “seen to be the fact. Never before did pur “colonial debentures touch such an “elevation as they did last week. ,It is “evident from the fact that the ‘Times’ “has devoted a leading article to the “subject that the accession of Sir George “Grey to office, as Premier of Now Zealand,had attracted no little attention in “ London— awakening a general interest which. “ would tend to affect the Money Market." The italics are our own. It is said that when a boy drops a pebble into the sea, although the visible effect is but a succession of ripples widening and fading in intensity as they recede, yet if our faculties could measure the completeresultitwould be seen that the motion caused by the first displacement really extended ■ over the whole watery waste of ~ ocean. If then the Imperial and Colonial bondholders in London, who profited by the rise of stocks in December last, were ignorant that the sudden shooting of a meteoric stone into our colonial puddle was the true cause of their good fortune, it was because of the imperfection of their faculties or of their sympathies. Our lucky and clairvoyant contemporary at Auckland knew all about it. The “fives,” however, appear to have been more sensitive and lively than “the four and ahalfs,” a difference which is, as yet, unexplained, but is no doubt explicable. The “ Herald ” may know, perhaps. It is matter for profound regret that the confidence in our New Zealand seen - rities which was thus developed did not display itself, as we think it ought to have done, in an eager desire on the part of those enemies of the human race who are known, on the stump, as capitalists, to possess themselves of more of our debentures. A loan of two and a half millions was authorised to be raised by the General Assembly in its last session; this loan has been for several mouths in the hands of the agents in London,and as yet we do not find that a single debenture has been placed, except, in pawn, for advances required to carry on with, and meet engagements, here and at Home, which cannot be evaded or satisfied with promises. Other colonies, our neighbors, as we see, have had better luck. Queensland has just floated her four per cent, loan at par. It amounted only to some four or five hundred thousand pounds, and had thus the objectionable character of a small loan, and yet, as the English telegrams informed us yesterday, the tenders for it amounted to two and a half millions ! There is thus no want of money, and no indisposition to invest in colonial securities where there is also confidence. Is the confidence of monied men shaken with respect to our New Zealand securities, and are our responsible Ministers here taking steps prudently to maintain or to restore it 1 Capital is proverbially timid; It seeks for small certainties, and loves assured results. If we are going to make laws to restrain the invasion of capitalists, as our rulers propose, capitalists will stay away. They are not “irrepressible” like the Chinamen, against whom we may also soon be called uppn, by the popular will, to defend ourselves,by exceptional legislation. In the colony of "Victoria the re-; preservatives of a rampant democracy,' countenanced at least if not aided by a weak Imperial Governor, have succeeded in giving a serious, if not a fatal, wound to public credit and. confidence. The accounts which reach us every day of commercial stagnation, of lack of enterprise, of want of employment amongst the working classes, and of the sudden withdrawal of both capital and labor from that colony, would not be without significance for the people here, if, in their blind following of a blind leader, they could see the shadowy: hand upon the wall. If it had been true, which—-the Auckland “Herald” notwithstanding—it certainly was not, that because here Sir George Grey was carried intooflice,under Mr. Larnach’s arm, the English money market was favorably affected, might it not now be said, with, at least, a somewhat nearer approach to truth, that the Premier of this colony has done his best to alter the favorable conditions of the market which he found existing when ho took office 1 ! His crusade against the Imperial connexion,his denunciation of capitalists, and his threats to “ burst up” large properties by taxation of the most unequal and unjust kind, have alarmed those persons in England who have interests here, whether as public creditors or ’ns property holders, and have been amongst the causes if not the sole cause of the difficulty which has been experienced in the floating of our loan in London, and of the consequent delay in the prosecution of public works" here, in regard to which, on all sides, we begin to hear complaints.