Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1892.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4307, 30 December 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1892.

Being the extended title of the WiiBAKAPA Daily, with which it is IDENTICAL

The New Zealand Times justly praises the Government for its non-borrowing polioy. In this respect Ministers have followed a safe path and are entitled to credit. It also intimates that in the future they will borrow within the Colony at a somewhat higher rate of interest, and bs independent of the London money market, Tliis, also, has an element of prudence in it, but it iB not necessarily a wise expedient if it exhausts the funds from which capital is drawn for the development of private enterprises, As a matter of fact it is a prudent course to borrow in the obeapest market at tho lowest rate of interest, provided that the loan is expended on reproductive works, or under suoh conditions that thero is a profit to the borrower on thfl transaction.

As far as Ministers, both past and present, are concerned, tho trail of the serpent haß been over them all, and the only special merit of the present rulers is that they are spending on a reduced scale; but in proportion to themoney tkoy ate laying out tbe work is being despatched in an almost ruinous and wasteful fashion, We see in this district half a dozen men engaged at a time on a seotion of railway where to do the work to advantage twenty times their number ought to be employed. The co-operative system seems to be losing ground and we may yet see ono man and a barrow attempting the construction of a mile of earthwork, Instead of bringing a line up to a paying point within two years the work at its present rate of progress is spread over about twenty years and with a fair allowance for interest, will possibly cost tbe Colony double what it has in the past been accustomed to pay for similar undertakings. Loan money is now delibeiately frittered away and in proportion to tbe sum expended there is probably more waste than even in'the palmy days of Vogel, An honest publio works polioy is still a dream of the future I If we got one it would matter little whether tbe Colony borrowed its money at home or abroad,