Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1894. FIVE PER CENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4665, 9 March 1894, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1894. FIVE PER CENT.

SEOOMD EDITION

Tns last number of the Australasian Insurance and Banking Eecordia to band, and tliis premier, financial authority, in the Southern Hemisphere.confirms, in a striking manner the Views wehave expressed recently on ". cheap, money." The Seddonian idea of State, mortgages has been taken up in Victoria, but in that Colony it is proposed to lend out Saving Banks accumulations. Here we are supposed to have parted with this fund to the co-operative laborer, and we have no resources of our own avuilablor The Banking Record points out, as we have recently stated, that the farmers who. need .relief are already bo heavily mortgaged and involved that their eeouritiea cannot possibly be taken oyer'at five per cent. It also declares that neithor parliament nor, Government are to! be trusted trending money to electors. There would,'as a neoessary conse>. quenoe, be favoritism, degenerating into corruption. ' We have already Bom 9 little experience in New Zealand of this deplorable facf> 'though it iB an aspect of the question which is not openly discussed. Taking, however, a .broader' view of the outlook wbioh State mortgages offer, the Kecord pointfl oijt tho disastrous effects of State valuations, -=Tha tendency of them 'would be to bolster, up the value of Colonial lafids against external influences, to plaee the Colony, in a sort of fools' paradise, while South America or some other rival exporting country stole away our trade. Emphatically our Australian contemporary declares that money cannot be lent at five per cent, j It estimates that it must be borrowed at four per cent., aad that at least 1£ per cent must be added for cost of administration, and a further unstated per centage for insurance against loss. It would appear that about 6 per cent, is the absolute minimum at which money could be lent to farmers by the State, and this oply on pboic9 freehold securities where there, iB a margin of fifty per cent.