THE NATIONAL DEBT.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 2, 15 May 1863, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE NATIONAL DEBT.

NATIO^^DEItT. (From the Canterbury JPress, 7th AprilsCan any ojne tell, us how.mycXNew saland owes at the ."present" moment ? fe could not ourselves, withonteonsirable trouble' and tedious reference past records, make up -; the'. J .'.correct (al; but it requires only. _a general (juaintance with the history of the jony, to arrive at a.result not very ;de of the truth.

First, then, the General Government irrqwed L500,0Q0 in 1857 ; a loan of 150,000 was taken up for war purses in 1860 or 1861 ; and last sesin a further loan of half a million was netioned.

Auckland has several small loans tstanding, both on account of the ovincial Government, and of the City iJlH&rbor authorities. She has now it aside the petty schemes of former ars, and goes in for half-a-million. ranaki has been prudent, whether mi compulsion or choice we need not quire, but we believe she has no bt except nominal ones to the GeneI chest. Hawke's Bay is hardly out its teens yet ; no doubt it will make for the lost time some day. Welgton has not borrowed largely. We not know the exact amount of the bt, but shall put it down, at about 0.000. Nelson owes but little, and irlborogh goes in for duplicity of perintendents instead of loans. Canbnrv, boldly leading the van, is infor 80,000, Otacro for something over

50,000, and Southland for L 150,000. It will be no exaggeration to say it the colony of New Zealand has rrowed, or is in the act of borrowing, has determined to borrow, three milis and a half of money. The debt of the Northern States must about L2Of),000,O00, or at the c of about LlO a head of the popuion.

The debt of Great Britain is about 00,000,000, of at the rate of between 6 and L 27 a head of the populan. The debt of New Zealand is about ,500.000, or supposing the populan to be about 150,000, which is not y far wrong — at the rate of L 35 cad of the population. So that at present moment the New Zealand tional Debt is nearly 30 per cent, ater in proportion to the populai than the National Debt of Great itain .

Phis is a somewhat startling anmcemeut. Of course there are ay circumstances in which the cotnison does not hold good, which we 11 refer to. But the fact that our it has already reached the enormous a of three millions and a half, is which we undertake to say will ie upon the majority of our readers i revelation for which they were not any means prepared. t will be said in the first place, that population is rapidly increasing, ilst the debt will be stationary, and ajyill be very small in proportion to irealth of the country. But we aid be glad to know by what autnowe monopolise to ourselves the it to borrowing in one generation ?. If our theory of borrowing be ;ect, why should not the next ncial generation " better tire iniCtion." gain it will be said, we are boring on the security of our waste Is. A country like England bors upon the taxable capability of the itry, but we have the enormous lie estate of the waste lands to fall on. Is this true ? Are we boring on the security of waste lands ? borrow when we have so many 5 of waste land to sell ; we sell i, and spend the money, not in idating the debt, but in other !ers. How can it be said we bori>n the security of the waste lands

p we make away with the security out paying the debt ?

istly it will be said we borrow for inerative objects. Ah ! that is ed the whole question. America ffrwing solely for the purposes of ruction. Every dollar's worth is ily destroyed, and produces no- ». So it was with the English . The money was poured out like r on foreign armies, and military naval expeditions, which left ing of a pecuniary or economical It behind them. The debt was left, lot one penny of income to meet interest on the debt. That had bas all to be raised annually out of people by taxation.

)w perhaps our readers will apate what we have always been so gly urging as to the extreme folly Jrrowing for purposes which are emunerative. The English railhave cost three hundred and fifty ans : a sum equal to nearly half lational debt has been raised over i in twenty-five years, and invested liljpys. Has this pressed on the jies of the country ? Not a morsel. lie contrary, it has expanded our irees. Why ? Because the railpay. They do not indeed pay as an income as they might have cinder a better system ; but they j^interest on capital, even now, s whole. ius apply this to our own case, s enormous debt which We have fed be expended so as to provide reate the interest, and the sinking which shall secure its extinction, tod good. It is quite impossible trow too much under snch condi-

But if not, if this money be d, as there is always too much iation to ; waste . borrowed money, I constitute a burden which will 1 like & .mill-stone on the neck of Jony. The J3ay will come when iterest must be paid by taxes, emember that a great part of this Iready incurred has been for that [ich: we shall never see any return. ifst half million loan was raised to

pay off the old ' New Zealand Company's debt, arid the debts of the first war. The L 150,000 loan was wholly for war purposes. Out of the Provincial Loans how many will provide their own interest ?

" It is a very serious question ; and it is a still more serious question now that Sir Georgb Grey has selected to treat the instructions of the Colonial Office with the same unmitigated contempt which distinguished his career at the Cape, and to sanction every loan raised by a province in spite of the direct and positive instructions of the Colonial Office to disallow it.