The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31. 1879.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 304, 31 October 1879, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31. 1879.

We are sorry to say that money continues as scarce in the Wairarapa, and i indeed all over the colony, as it was three months ago. Yet three months ago, the knowing ones prophesied that J about this time the cloud would lift, and coin circulate among us once more. It is not difficult to see the immediate ; causes why the depression still. con- J tinues, The Government treasury has f been locked latterly, subsidies to Conn- ] ties and Boroughs are in arrear, and a good deal of temporary pressureand pri- i vation has been experienced. This evil ] may then be considered at an end with i the late political deadlock. A greater one is the feeling of uncertainty about • the five million loan, it is not yec , placed, and till it is placed the financial position of New Zealand is a precarious one. Wb believe that the loan will be : placed, but that the operation will not ■ be effected without difficulty, The pitcher has of late years gone to the ' well too often, and there is reason for anxiety on the present occasion, It is not too much to say that the professional money-lenders in London know our position better than we do ourselves—nor is it too much to say that our position has been getting more and more unsatisfactory under the regime of the Grey Ministry. We estimate that at least five thousand able-bodied men are out of employment now in New Zealand, and that the sole cause of this is a want of money. Labor in abundance is in demand all over the colony, if employers could obtain money to pay for it. We venture to say that if the rate of interest fell to-morrow, from 10 to 7 per cent,, every capable unemployed laborer in New Zealand would find work within a fortnight, The colony is starving for want of money, and yet Sir George Grey cooly argued on one occasion that capital was not indispensable in a new country, and that labor was an equivalent for it, We have now labor in abundance, and are without adequate capital, and, according to Sir George Grey's theory, we ought to be happy and contented, If our cup is not full to overflowing, the 5000 immigrants recently ordered by the late Premier from the British poorhouses ought to make it run over. We have some hope, now that the Grey Ministry is a thing of the past, that the money market will be unlocked for us. We do not attribute to the late Ministry all our misfortunes: it is not responsible for the low price of wool and grain, but it is responsible for the fact that when money was a drug in England, and was sorely needed in New Zealand, it so shook the confidence of the money-lenders at home in our resources, that, instead of giving us more, they actually took from us much 1 of what they had formerly lent, The Grey Ministry is responsible that money is 10 per cent, in New Zealand, instead of 7—and while 7 per cent, means wealth and prosperity, 10 per cent, means ruin—slow, sure, inevitable ■ ruin!