The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1890. BORROWING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2050, 24 May 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1890. BORROWING.

The cat is out of the bag. We are going to have further borrowing after all. Mr Fergus at Queenstown last Thursday evening said there would be no further borrowing; but the Government intended to issue land debentures so as to enable them to buy Native lands, and road debentures to enable them to make roads. Now is not this borrowing ? It is absolute trickery, and nothing less. A couple of months ago the New Zealand Times—a paper which is supposed to be partly owned by Ministers —published an article stating that borrowing would have to be resorted to. This created a furore throughout the colony, and it was made unmistakeably plain that further borrowing would not be tolerated under any circumstance whatsoever. The Government saw that the game was up, and so the Premier repudiated any responsibility for the article in the Times. From this, of course, Ministers learned that it would be useless for them to resort to borrowing, because the colony would not stand it, and so they have devised-, another scheme to raise the wind. They intend to issue debentures on the security of the land, and also road debentures on the security of nothing in particular. How characteristic this jis. During 20 years the Atkinson party have held the reins of Government, with the exception of 5 years, and in all that time it has been a ease of “ another loan.” Now they have come to the end of their tether, and they are stuck, and so a new means of borrowing has been devised. Hitherto they have borrowed right arid left; henceforward they mean to borrow with the left only. Well, this is borrowing all the same, let ministers call it what they like, and this is the only new thing in the Ivlinister’s speech, with the excepof the grouping of West Coast local bodies. It is really humiliating to think-that we are governed by a set of men whose only spokesman has nothing more than what is contained in Mr Fergus’s speech to tell us. But such is the case, and so it will be until the people came to understand something about the Government of the colony. The people make the Parliament and the Government, and because the people take verv little intereat in politics the class of men we get as Ministers is invariably very inferior. However, considering this is the only Ministerial pronouncement we have had, we think we were entitled to something better, even from Fergus, but language has been given to the present Government to conceal their thoughts, and it is evident that is the use they are making ofi it. Their proposal is borrowing all the same, apd vye cfoubt whether thdi coleny will stand it.