Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1883.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1266, 3 February 1883, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1883.

The following careflly compiled figures represent faithfully the actual financial position of the Australian Colonies, and the public debt is put down as follows: — New South Wales £18,897,000 Victoria 22,593,000 New Zealand ... ... 27,680,000 South Australia .. 11,482,000 Queensland 13,125,000 Tasmania 1,944,000 Western Australia .. 361,000 T0ta1£96,082,000 Of course the first question that arises in regard to such an amount of debt is how many people there are to bear it. Now, our population is, in round numbers, according to the latest returns: — In New South Wales 781,000 Victoria 882,000 New Zealand (exclusive of 35,000 Maoris) 508,000 South Australia ... 295,000 Queensland 227,000 Tasmania ... 119,000 Western Australia ... ... ... 32,000 Total 2,844,000 We therefore are even now nearly 3,000,000 of people, and more than 1,000,000 of these have been added in the last ten years. Now in 1860 we owed only £10.000,000. We have added £86,000.000 in the last twenty years We willingly allow that this is a very great and sudden growth of debt in so short a time. The real question is, has the progress of Au-tralasia been equal to the growth of her debt ? And the answer to this is that it has been greater in many ways Out of the £96,000,000, borrowed by us, we have spent more than £56,000,000 on railways, £20,000,000 on public works. and nearly £10,000,000 on immigration. Still the expenditure or outlay yields an ample return, as the nett profits for the various works vastly exceed the ordinary rate of interest.