Past, Present, and Future.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 428, 15 November 1876, Page 2

Past, Present, and Future.

Sir. —It need only be said, to meet with general assent, that the too evident depression in Poverty Bay, takes place incalculably more as the inevitable result of that credit system, by which, at least, one comparatively colossal fortune has been built up, than as that of any temporary, and circumscribed disaster, such as the late flood, or occasional unfavorable season. It has been all along forseen that the drain, drain, drain, of accumulating interest on interest from I2|per cent, upwards, which has notably been the rule here, would eventually end in absorbing capital, improvements, enterprise, health, and life. A comparatively few appear to have escaped more or less scathed, but the great majority of the settlers of the district appear to be under the influence of a collapse, that must have been carefully calculated on and prepared for. It is patent to every one conversant with the operations of the money and kindred markets, that the actions of tlw hoofs andelawsofbullsandbearsaro lively amongst us, that values of land and other matters have been encouraged to a maximum for certain ends, and forced to a fall for the same.

The whole system of trade has been vitiated by having been made to subtend the aim of accumulations, and the fact exists that ready money transactions were more than discouraged. Credit, heaped

up with interest, was the only made of business. The taint infected those able to pay, and the consequence is taken advantage of by the latter also in the general debasement. Merchants who have had to follow the lead, find much of their means spread about without any very tenable grasp on them. Each person one meets is a personation of Micawber, waiting for something to “ turn up,” and hoping that the district has sufficient rebound to overcome even the incubus at present weighing it down ; that Patutahi, Public Works, and time, will get us all from under it. All that is as it may be ; but my opinion is, that this should be made theclimaxof the distructive system alluded to: that measures should be adopted by a trade combination, in some way gradually to wind up the present false, and precarious, and hurtful trade ; and that means should be also adopted by the oppressed for their relief, for which I believe a way also exists. I merely touch the affair here with the point of a needle as it were, leaving it to myself and others to digest and develope. —I am, Ac., One of the Bitten.