THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2572, 5 April 1877, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1877.

Ws referred m. part yesterday to Mr; Hamilton's recent paper on the" economic progress of New Zealand. It has this in it worthy of attention, that it does not give, or attempt.ta give an opinion of what the condition 1 ftf New Zealand may be at some future time, which no one of us may ever lire iq see, supposing certain | things happen which may never take place. I It dealt with those stubborn things, facts, | made more stubborn still in that they are expressed in figures. Comparisons may be.often odious, Jbut they are often useful, and in contrasting New Zealand with other nations it is satisfactory to find that her financial position .will, bear a not disadvantageous comparison with others who are generally regarded as prosperous. We hear so much about the colony beingruined by dishonest and corrupt Ministers, so much said about the colony being involved in a debt that it can never pay, , and of the crisis 'which .must inevitably ensue, that it is rather consoling to read the facts as stated by a disinterested third party, one who is neither all. praise nor all blame, and be able to take comfort therefrom;; The.first fact staring us in the face is nineteen millions and a-half of dobt. Far too large a sum it is asserted for New Zealand to owe. But how does the matter stand, even when compared with wealthy England. Comparing their debt with ours, we find that England owes £49 12s Id per,head, while New Zealand owes only £48 17s 2d per head. But it m&j be said, oh, England has something to show for her debts, New Zealand very little, besides, England has been involved in expensive wars which its position has obliged it to engage in. Even in both, these respects New Zealand will compare favourably with England. More than a sixth part of the whole debt was expended on war up to 1870, and war is not a reproductive work. Then as regards the assets, ! or the " something to show " for the debt ' contracted. The state of the case is this. We owe this £19,544,030, but against this we have a sinking fund invested by trustees of £1,200,000, no less than £6,200,000 has been expended on railways, and £1,500,000 i on roads, bridges, and other public, works, | none of which can be considered unnecessary or valueless ; and last, but not least, 34,0C3,C00 acres of land which, at the low estimate of 7/6 an acre, would realise £12,750,000, and augment the assets to more than twenty-one and a-half millions against nineteen millions and a-half of debt. There is not much danger of a cation becoming bankrupt whose assets .exceed ils liabilities by £2,000,003. Again, to judge -of the ability of New Zealand by its 'exports— which is a very fair way of arriving at a conclusion as to whether there is a probability of the sinking fund and interest being regularly mot—we find that the exports of New Zealand seawards

calculated for eight years amount to no less than £18 2s Id per head, while in Victoria for the same period they only amount to £14 9s 7d,'%nd in New South Wales £10-IBs 4d.' ?Eyen this amount is reduced when we come to England which for the same period only exported at the. rate of £6 17s 5& per head, the Canadian exports being £4* per head. Thus wei have these three things to consider in looking at the present state of things —First, that at a fair computation, our assets exceed our debts; next, that these debts are less per: head than England's;" thirdly, that our ex* ports are per head nearly three times as much as England's, more than any Australian colony, and four times as much as the exports from Canada. These are facts, and the fault-finders may disprove them if they can, And when to these we consider that we have no poor rates, that the railways, roads, bridges, &c, add greatly to the value of land which, be it remembered, was only valued at an average of 7s 6d per acre, and that, the resources of ,the ; colony are becoming I daily more developed and more capable of development, it may be imagined that the coming crisis is something like Dr Cummings day of dpomin not having as. yet: a fixed date in spite of prognostications. :'<l , i