The Daily News. MONDAY, AUGUST 22. PUBLIC DEBT EXTINCTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 114, 22 August 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, AUGUST 22. PUBLIC DEBT EXTINCTION.

The IPrime Minister lhas told the country how he proposes to wipe out the public debt of seventy-five million pounds in seventy-five years iby means of a sinking fund. Whilst New Zealand undeveloped she must borrow or increase taxation to provide the wherewithal to carry on the big public worksi to which the country stands committed. The Premier mentioned) that within the next fifteen years the amount to be borrowed will probaMy not exceed twenty millions sterling, fljt is, therefore, clearly impossible lor us to begin to make any sensible diminution of the national debt for the next fifteen years. It is true that a large portion of .the present public debt represents our finest assets, and that these assets repay interest and already established sinking funds. The Premier shows that to discharge a debt of one million pounds in seventy-five years a sum of is required annually. He does not t'hink that the national debt will ever reach one hundred millions : sterling, and points out that the annual sum required for the extinction of such

a debt would be £223,000. If such money is found from revenue, and it is not borrowed, the proposition is full of hope. If it andi its accumulations are used for no other purpose than the extinction of the public debt, no possible fault can be found. Otherwise, t'he obvious course would be to borrow less annually by that sum. New Zealand has to look forward with hope to the time when it is no longer necessary to ,build public work®, when the country is well settled, and when the need for borrowing has ceased. During the years in Which the Premier shows it may be necessary to borrow to build further works, it miay ibe found' that the habitual surpluses have accumulated to such an extent that some of the periods 1 may pass without recourse to any money market. It is hoped this may be the case. A useful comment was made by a member of the Mouse on Friday last, •when he.said that the worker had only his wages out Of which' to pay his portion of the interest now owing on the present debt, and to pay his proportion of the money to be used in the extinction of the present delbt and that to be made before the real attempt is made to extinguish the principle. He showed that the great, landholders had obtained miudi gold by the tremendous increase in the price of land, held by them before •the increases' were general, and the speaker justly said that those who are best able to pay taxation should be duly taxed) for the extinction of the public deibt. It is to Ibe sincerely hoped that the Premier's method will be as successful as he wishes, and that the progress necessary to make it so will be all that every friend of the country can desire. 'New Zealand looks not so much for the extinction of its debt to any financial scheme, however clever, based on present conditions, but to increased population, closer settlement of the land, and' increased' production.