New Zealand in Fifty Years.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8813, 15 May 1907, Page 2

New Zealand in Fifty Years.

Slß.—Some few days ago I read your leader on the problem of India in the next fifty years. Would it not bo interesting to predict what onr own country may bo in fifty years? I was very ranch struck the other day with a very old friend and Kew Zealand colonist of over 50 years, who has made up his mind to leave the country and seek fresh other fields, either in the Argentine or in Australia. In discussing the pros, and cons, witn him ho said: “This is no doubt a good country and a line climate, and it is very prosperous while we have unlimited borrowing powers and the money can bo used either wisely or wastefully. Who is to put a chock oh it? The people who lend it do not know whether it is profitably used or wasted and those that have the power I am afraid have not the necessary judgment to look into the future. If I borrow more than my estate is worth and when settling day comes I have passed away the law will not compel my children to pay my debts, therefore the lender must lose and it strikes mo that in fifty years the people then will say, “We are'not going to bo slaves in order to pay interest and principal upon monies that onr fathers borrowed and wasted and that the lender was foolish enough to lend without the precaution of seeing that it would be profitably spent. ’ Look at this country at the present time, full of agents of all descriptions, with 101 odd members of Parliament at £3OO a year, many of whom would be dear at one third of it; lawyers’ fees two guineas a day to £IOO. And the actual workers that earn their broad by the sweat of their brows what is the percentage of them? Therefore, how is this going to last? I will seek a bigger country where there will ha more to share the taxes*and it hvill not be so heavy on the individual. ’ ’ I tried to persuade him that things would right themselves, that we should get the economical men at the head of affairs and that he was foolish to leave the country. He replied: “That will be all the better for you who are staying but I am going away in any case. ’

Yours, etc., AN OLD SETTLER May 13th, 1907.