THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE OF NEW ZEALAND.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 296, 2 October 1873, Page 7

THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE OF NEW ZEALAND.

(Fnmiht "Auckland Herald.") No man can with safety predict the future without knowing with tolerable accuracy the features of the present. But while it seems that none of our public men are preparing for the future, it is almost certain that few are aware of the present condition of New Zea- | land. It may be advisable in some cases to approach very closely the object of scrutiny, but these willbe found t to consist almost entirely of isolated instances, or even exceptions to the general rule. To grasp and comprehend the larger features of national existence it is rather necessary to look on from a distance and without. The spectator who, from an adjacent height, witnesses a battle sees more of the conflict than the soldier who struggles and bleeds in the ranks below. The aeronaut who, amid the clouds, sails through the blue vault of heaven can see the great aspect of the earth beneath infinitely better than the swarthy toiler in the busy mill, or the ploughboy, " whistling as he goes for want of thought." The lark when, her wings wet with pearly dew, she cleaves the golden sunbeams, and at "Heaven's gate Bings," pouring out a flood of liquid melody, which drops like a dew of sound and song upon the waking earth far down below, beholds the hills and valleys, the rill and spreading sea, the meadow and the town, as she could not when slumbering she folded her wing within her lowly nest. And the coxswain of the lifeboat, as with steady eye and undaunted heart he guides his crew through the howling waves, sees more of the wreck than the wretched survivors of the storm, clustered frozen and dying on the slippery rook. For a moment, then, retiring from the busy throng, let us take in a few of the more easily seen features of our present position. In a monetary point of view that position is certainly not to be envied. We have before us as we write _ Anthony Trollope's " Australia and New Zealand," and the last Budget or Financial Statement of Juliue Yogel. It is very useful sometimes to "see ourselves as other see us," and perhaps the criticism of Anthony Trollope is the best that we could have. "There can," says Mr. Trollope, " be hardly a doubt, I think, that New Zealand is over governed, over legislated for, over provided with officials, and over burdened with national debt. And then there is also the danger," he continues, " from whjch nations as well as colonies have suffered, of there arising some Cagliostro in politics, some conjuror in statecraft, who shall be clever enough to talk steady men off their legs by fine phrases, and to dazzle the world around him by new inventions in the management of affairs. Such men can invest democratic measures with tendencies purely conservative, can run into debt upon theories of the strictest economy, and commingle patriotic principles with cosmopolitan practices in a manner very charming to weak minds. A statesman of this class is of necessity unscrupulous, and to a young community may be ruinous. It is his hope to leap to great success by untried experiments, and being willing himself to run the risk of extermination if he fail, he does not hesitate to bind his country to his own chariot wheels as he rushes into infinite Bpace. Such' a Miniate? in a, colony, should ha get the power of the purse into bis hands, will throw his millions about without any reference to the value of the property acquired. He will learn the charm of spending with profusion, and will almost teach himself to measure the prosperity of the community which is subject to him by the amount which it owes Mr. Vogel's theory had its charms for the people of New Zealand, as is p»oved with sufficient clearness by the money which he has borrowed. But that which at first was taken for dash and good courage, seemed to many after a while to become recklessness and foolhardihood. Mr. Yogel was playing a great experiment at the expense of the community, and the colony began to ask who was Mr. Yogel that it should trust him ? I am constrained to say, looking back at the figures on the previous page, that I think the colony trusted him too far." What would Mr. Trollope have said if additional loans were proposed, as they have been, and carried too only six weeks ago to the extent of three millions more, and the principle laid down contrary to all Mr. Vogel's previous policy, that of permitting and j even encouraging the provinces to borrow just as much as they can get. In Mr. Vogel's Financial Statement, a most hollow, distorted, and fanciful statement of the affairs of the colony, after painting all things couleur de rose, and congratulating New Zealand upon its position, he says :—": — " Mr. Anthony Trollope would, perhaps, characterise this as 'blowing;' but the colonists of New Zealand may be content to believe that they are justified and speaking the. truth, though, it be in their own praise." It may be, rowever, that the position of this colony has not presented itself to us. New Zealand owes at the present time, in round numbers, more than eleven millions of money. Her ordinary revenue is under twe've hundred thousand pounds, and the interest and sinking fund demand nearly eeven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, Of course the present

taxation, large as it is, does not pay this, or nearly pay it, and therefore a great part of the interest has to be paid out of borrowed money. But the debt is rapidly increasing. Three millions more have been just now authorised, and if the Provincial Loan Bill be ever acted upon, not many years will pass before the debt of New Zealand will be at the least twenty millions, the interest and charges upon which will be about fourteen hundred thousand pounds'. That is something over the total revenue, and there is no hope of the revenue increasing to any large extent. How is this to be met? Does Mr. Vogei tell, us ? He calculates that the public works will pay a part. Unless all history be contradicted in this case, the public works, railways, &c, will have to be carried on for a time at a public loss instead of a profit. The plan or plans to face this difficulty are not by him suggested. Indeed he and his friends, while proceeding to borrow more millions, smilingly tell us, "Oh ! it will be all right ; the public works will pay, and we shall have such an increase in our population that we shall be able, without increased taxation, to make up the difference." When the colony, directly or indirectly, owes | twenty millions, we shall have to pay this sum of £1,400,000 every year for interest and sinking fund. Has any man thought what this means ? On a population of 300,000, it means an annual tax of «64 13s. 4d., or ninetythree shillings and fourpence per head, and this not to pay for the current expenditure, but for interest and sinking fund and charges alone. But ufnetythree shillings a-year for each individual means for a married man, with his wife and children, the sum of £32 11s a year, or a fraction more than twelve shillings and sixpence per week of dead taxation ! There's a good time coming. John Smith, you earn six shillings a day when you are in work, and you find it hard to feed wife and three children ; but wait, my fellowworkman, wait till the good time so often foretold by Julius Yogel and his followers has come, and you will have to give up just one and sixpence a-day of your wages to pay the interest and sinking fund, which these political adventures have saddled upon you. "£ou will then, no doubt, enquire " Where is this Yogel ? I should like to see the great man and shake bands with him, and give him my hearty thanks;" and you will, peradventure, be told that the object of your ardent attachment has gone home, and is living in retirement in some lovely villa in Twickhenham, or near Hampton Court, on the fortune made by him by dealing in pickled rhododendrons, or the manufacture of palm oil from gold dust. In Mr. Vogel's Financial Statement, while saying that under a different state of things from that which he now proposed — a state of things indeed which till this year he always strongly advocated — it might be possible that there would be a certain amount of log-rolling carried on in the House of Assembly, not of course that any such practices do obtain, but only that they might — he closes his simile in this way :—: — * Thus you have twelve members with two bridges, and they find twelve other members who want a road; and these twenty-four find twenty-four others wanting a bridge or two, a road, and perhaps a lunatic asylum to complete the balance." And a very good- thing, too, if tU© fbrfcy-eigU* with Mr. Vo^el at their head were to be put into the asylum and kept there till this infatuated country had come to its senses. "In June, 1873," said Mr. Yogel, years ago, "in June, 1873, we shall see at any rate a profit of £10,000 on the public works then completed." Where is the ten thousand ? It will puzzle any man in New Zealand to shew ten thousand pence. Every year now a very large portion of interest is ! paid out of borrowed money; but that i must of necessity soon end. And during these years, when there is great public expenditure, a great many of the ordinary items of expenditure are covered, which will again require attention and provision out of ordinary revenue when the loans are spent. Meanwhile the revenue is not increasing, except indeed where, as in the new tariff, increased taxation is resorted to. And so with plausible speeches to the Assembly and the people, the precious time is passing by and the end seetnß yet far off. Mr. Yogel may, and no doubt will, quickly end the session, and he will then with a sigh of relief feel that he is safe for another year. And yet, rest npt too confidingly, O Premier, in thy fancied security! When Belshazzar had gathered around him in his banquethall the valor and the beauty of his kingdom, and the light of a myriad tapers gleamed ,from gold and gems and sparkling eyes ; when the wine cup passed from hand to hand, and the lofty halls shook with the dancers' tread and shout of kingly revellers, When eyes looked love to eyes that looked again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; ' it was then that the fearful hand came forth, and amidst the sudden stillness of the tomb, wrote in characters of fire upon th 9 wall, " Mene, mene, tekel, upharsan." Now you, O people think that the evil day is afar off. Sweet was the morning to the cities of the plain when Lot and his daughters were flying to the hills for refuse ; bright Rhone the sun ; clear ran the streams, the air was redolent with the scent of many, flowers, and melodious with the m

songs of birds ; *mdc waved the golden corn, and ihe cattle lowed in the pastures , loud was the hum of business and the laughter of the people ; but evening came — Sodom and Gomorrah ►were no more, and the silence of solitude aud death brooded upon the scene. ______„.. ___