NEW ZEALAND LOANS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1917, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND LOANS.

SIR JULIUS VOGEL'S ' £10,000,000. (Hawera Star.) ? The largest loan ever floated by the New Zealand Government on the English money market was in the seventies, when the sum of £10,000,000 was raised at the instigation of the then Colonial. Treasurer, Mr. (afterwards Sir Julius) Vogel. The objects of the loan were to promote immigration and prosecute public works, and it was under this scheme that the population of New Zealand was largely augmented. In 1874 31,774 immigrants iwere introduced, and in the following year the total was 18,324. Taranaki participated in this policy, and there are many people who will recollect the arrivals off the old New Plymouth roadstead of the ships Halcione and Avalanche, with special drafts of immigrants for Taranaki. They included all classes—farmers, laborers, tradesmen, etc.—and those that did not take up on their own account were =OOll employed by those who needed them. Many who came out on these ships are now prosperous farmers or citizens, and they have reason to bless the day that such favorable inducements were afforded them of leaving the drudgery of the Old Country for a chance to make good that had previously been denied them. Everything boomed in New Zealand during the time this loan was being expended. Businesses sprang up everywhere, and it was not a question of going cap in hand to the bank manager for an overdraft, but vice versa; in fact, one was literally pressed to< take an overdraft. (This was, of course, before butter, cheese, and frozen meat were articles of commerce). Alas, an end came to the £10,000,000, as also to many of those 'businesses established during the "flush of tho season." This was in tho early eighties. The banks adopted a very cunning ruse for putting the screw on. Strange managers were put in charge of branches for a time, and they did the trick. Overdrafts were called up, and those who couldn'f; pay cash, at anyrate paid fpr experience. Although the spending of Sir Julius Vogel's £10,000,000 loan was considered by many to have had no lasting benefits, yet, can it be denied that the settlement of large blocks of the back country of the Dominion by immigrants was not a great advantage? This policy of increasing our population paved the <wav for the opening of dairy factories and the building of freezing works. There were, no doubt, desperate financial struggles with some firms to keep their heads above water; the weak went to the wall, .but those able to weather the storm profited by their experiences, and have since trusted more to their own resources than to borrowed capital. In conclusion, might it not be safely said that the borrowing and spending of this £10,000,000 loan in tho seventies was a considerable factor in enabling the people of New Zealand themselves to subscribe £30,000,000 in 1918 and 1917 to help the Government pay its war bills?