NEW ZEALAND LOAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 52, 2 March 1903, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND LOAN.

THE PREMIER INTERVIEWED. PSR PRESS ASSOCIATION Wellington, February 28. The Premier, interviewed at Picton with reference to the calony's loan, replied that the first strand of the financial painter had been cut by the British investor without warning, as those holdicg stock would lose. The underwriters would find it difficult for i time to unload, and if they did so balow 93|, they would lose. Why the underwriters did not themselves subscribe to the loan when they saw thit the public wero not coming in was beyond his comprehension. Perhaps they, lik-3 everyone else, could not foresee that the public would hoi) aloof. Anyway the money required for some time in hand, and the price realised was not less than £9l 14s. Could ho have foreseen what was going to happen, he would not Lave announced the loan, but he had acted cn the best advice obtainable. The colony had never in its history been in a better position to borrow. When the Gatfwnment came into office the annual charge for interest was .£1,752.000, while last year it was £30,000 less. Yet in tho last twelve yeai s fouiteen uailiion3 had been borrowed. As further <rmphis*sing the sound ne?s of the c lmy's finance the Premier said that ia 1895, the interest on the Government's finance absorbed 39 per cent, of tl-e revenue, whereas last year only 29 per cent was absorbed, which, on a revenue of six millions, meant a saving of £600,000 a a year. This, he declared, proved that the colony could have paid the interest on further boi rowing of twenty millions more than we had done.