THE AFFAIRS OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5456, 21 September 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE AFFAIRS OF NEW ZEALAND.

A few days since a New Zealand loan for £3,500,000 was brought out, subscriptions being received at the Bank of England. . 'A certain city editor, HerapatlCs Journal says, carped at this loan, as he carps at almost everything, good, bad, aud indifferent; but notwithstanding those adverse criticisms, the applications received for allotments of the loan attained an aggregate of £9,000,000. It is true that the rate of interest offered; wass per cent, per annum, and that as times go this is rather a liberal interest for a colony to give; nevertheless the broad fact remains that the New Zealand loan for 1878 was a great success. We rejoice that’this should have been the case,-since New Zealand seems destined to be a future England, and to guarantee happy homes for-hundreds and thousands of families which might otherwise pine in want and destitution in the old country. Not only does New Zealand appear to insure a fair measure of comfort and happinesv to large numbers of our countrymen and countrywomen, but it will also.afford profitable employment for a large amount of English capital and absorb a large amount of English manufactures. Off every ground, then, every true Englishman ought to rejoice at the success of any scheme calculated to promote the prosperity and accelerate the development of New Zealand. There appears to be a strange—-and we fear it must bo said an obstinate—confusion of ideas In regard to New Zealand finance. It is true that New Zealand has accumulated a considerable public debt. It is very possible that the detractors of the colony are speaking within book when they affirm that it owes from £lO to £45 per bead of its population, while the corresponding debt of the mother country does not exceed £25 per head of its population. It is true, further, that the debt contracted by New Zealand in the early stage of its history arose from trying wars which the settlers were compelled to wage with the native population. But in answer to all this, it may be affirmed with perfect truth that the greater portion.. of the, capital raised by Now Zealand loans has been applied to useful, judicious, and reproductive purposes. The debt of New Zealand is, after all, a peace debt. It is simply so much English capital imported into the colony to secure its satisfactory development. Of course the money unavoidably sunk in war with the Maoris is so much cash sacrificed and lost, and this is to be regretted; but New Zealand possesses such great resources that she will overcome her early difficulties if she can but be assured of a few years of peace. In this regard it is satisfactory to note that New Zealand has not been troubled with any war with the Maoris since 1869, and that in the nine years which have elapsed since that date the colony has made very rapid strides in wealth and prosperity. Another fact which tells very strongly in favor of the stability - .'of /New Zealand finance is the rapidity with which the population—and by consequence the productive power —of • New Zealand expands. The natural increment of New Zealand life, through the excess of New Zealand births over New Zealand deaths, is 4 per cent, per annum, as compared with a corresponding increase of per cent,per annum in Great Britain-; and apart

from this consideration/the New Zealend Government has applied a considerable portion of the money it has raised of late years on loan to the development of an immigration policy. Such a policy as this is a feasible and judicious one in New Zealand, since a New Zealand immigrant once landed in the colony cannot very readily leave it again. Every immigrant in New Zealand becomes a producer and a consumer, and helps to quicken the general current of New Zealand life, and to swell the revenue of the New Zealand Treasury. It cannot yet be affirmed with absolute confidence that New Zealand has seen the last of the obstinate Maori wars which have occasioned so much loss and suffering in the past. Still, the relations of the colonists with the native race are more cordial and satisfactory than they have ever been at any previous period in the Jiistory of the colony ; and this, of course, is something.— (E»iror>wn V-W? \ ngurt 2).