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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5423, 14 August 1878, Page 2

A Parliamentary paper relating to the late negotiation of the three and a half million loan has been published. The information conveyed by this paper is singularly meagre, and this is saying a great deal, regard being had to tho practice introduced by our reforming Government of giving the least possible information, in the shape of papers, upon subjects of public interest upon which the people expect and have a right to tho fullest information. All that wo now get is just what it may suit or be safe for the Government to communicate. Tho Premier, on tho stump, was constantly insisting upon the necessity of imparting political information to the people ; of declaring that every action of Ministers themselves in their separate offices, and of Ministers in Executive Council advising her Majesty’s Representative, should be public ; and it was promised, as our readers know, that there should be issued, from the Government Printing Office, or some othersonree, a daily bulletin to show to tho people how their Ministers were engaged from hour to hour of every day—what they had done and what they had left undone. Like the promise of the “free breakfast table,” of manhood suffrage with one vote and ono vote only, of the bursting up land tax for the wicked capitalist and the holders of enormous tracts of land, this promise of tho frank and open publication of official transactions has been postponed judiciously. Tho daily bulletins might have shown that Ministers, with one or two exceptions, wore not at work in their offices, but were running about tho country on pleasure excursions at tho public expense. And, with respect to tho exceptions, publication might have exhibited in a startling fashion the silent, quiet, unobtrusive, yet astute and persistent administrative arrangements, which were being made in certain departments at onoo to promote economy and prepare tho way for the separation of tho two islands and tho realisation of tho Ministerial vision ot tho restoration of “two or more provinces” and the institution of a Federal

Government. But to return to our point, the letter from the Loan Agents, we think that it would have been proper if the telegrams referred to, and the letters of instruction, had also been laid before Parliament and printed, so that the whole history of the transaction might be before the people. When the information of the floating of the loan was received, and communicated to a favored journal or two, our readers will remember tho fanfaronade about the extent of the subscriptions to the loan being an indication of the confidence of the monied world of England in the present Government of New Zealand, and of the influence of tho names of Sir George Grey and Mr Larnach on tho Stock Exchange. In this connection, the caution given by the Loan Agents is worthy of being noted and remembered. “It is important that you “ should recognise, say the Loan “Agents,—

That the success of the loan does not mean tint tho market is open to the negotiation for some time to come of further New Zealand loans. Too much stress should not bo attached to tho magnitude of the subscriptions. It is not to bo supposed that there was really a willingness to subscribe to the amount of eight and three-quarter millions. When it became known that the applications would exceed tho three and u half millions we had to dispose of, it became evident that the full amounts applied for in each case could not bo granted ; hence applications were put in for much larger sums than tho subscribers actually required.

Economy of administration in the matter of printing is of course a virtue, but, like charity, it may be made to cover a multitude of sins. The people desire full information as to the public transactions of the year, which heretofore it has been the practice to lay before Parliament without reserve. The present Government profess their earnest desire to give more information than any of the preceding Ministries ever did give, but they restrain themselves from motives of economy, and, as in the paper now before us, give tho picture of ono side only of a transaction involving large public interest, in regard to which the people have a right to full and exact information.