The Waikato Times.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1117, 21 August 1879, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

Equal and exact justioe to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious

or political. Here shall the Press the People's right

maintain, Unawed by influence and nnbribed by gain.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1879.

Of all the measures which came before the Assembly, in its late short Session, none lound less opposition than the Loan Bill. Some few members, like Dr Wallis, objected to further borrowing, but the large majority admitted not alone the necessity, but the advisability of such a policy. And really tho whole 1 question of desirability, or otherwise, depends simply upon the objects for which such loans are raised. If we look to two countries in the old world, peopled with men of our own tongue and race, and enjoying free democratic government like New Zealand, we shall find an example of either kind. Great Britain has long laboured under a heavy national debt. America is fast buildiDg up one. The first feels the effect in a grinding taxation that causes her population to seek an outlet in the uncultivated waste lands of the other. With America the case is very different, and why ? simply, because, in the case of Great Britain, with its national debt of eight hundred millions sterling, seven-eighths of that amount was, probably, blown away in powder and shot, to the distruction of its f jreign customers, and the crippling of its own producers. America, during the last half-century, has been a regular and steady borrower from outside, but, with a single late exception, the whole of those loans have been applied to reproductive works, and to the opening up and settlement of enormous tracts of country. And marvellously have the United States progressed and thriven, under the system.

But, as there are a few within the House, so are there mai^y outside it who view with alarm a n increase of the colonial debt, and who point to the sum per head of interest and sinking fond for which each colonist is necessarily taxed, as a warningthat we can go uo further. Never was there a greater mistake in .political economy than this. The arguments are all in favor of continued borrowing ; provided, as we have already stated, that the money so borrowed is expended in pushing forward the reproductive system of Public Works nnd Immigration on which the colony has fairly enteied. Larger numbers imply less taxation, increased produotion, and consequent increased wealth to the State and power of contributing to the revenue. In a late issue we published the Immigration returns for the twelve montha ended the 30th June last, and in them are fouud an evidence in point. In that jear the colony introduced 8747 souls at a cost of £112,000 or an average cost of JEI2 15a lOd per head. Now a reference to the ordinary revenue returns shows that the annual contribution per head by the people of this colony amounts to a sum of between £5 and £6. This means either a lessened average of taxation for every one in tho colony, or a greater capacity lor bearing increased liability. A.nd so with the money expended on public works. Roads and railways we must have, if we are to open up and settle the waste lands of the Colony, and render them productive. Those which we have at present constructed are but a fragmont of the system which is necessary for the colonisation cf either island, and are each, in themselves, for the most part, of a purely fragmentary character. This was especially the case in the North Island lines until very lately, and

tho consequence of extension, in this instance, has produced the effect of raising the percentage of pvofit on their working, from 15a percent, on tho outlay, in 1877-B, to more tlum j doable, or 1-| per cent, in 1878-9. And just as tho present lines are extended and completed and cease to be of a mere fragmentary character, and just as population is introduced and settled on the land to find employment for them in the carriage of passengers and freight, will the profits on the working of our railways not only go on steadily increasing, till they pay interest and sinking fuud on the cost of construction, bat will contribute an Over plus availabta for the further extension of the system. Nor must we take the existence of a temporary depression in the colony &a evidence that a cbeck is necessary in the expenditure of the colony, as a colony. That depression is not a purely local matter. It is felt generally throughout the world at the present time, and has come upon us from without in the first instance. Trae, it has found us susceptjblc and yielding to attack, bat that weakness on our part is due not to the effect of over-taxation, the result of public expenditure, but to the over-speoulation of the colonists in their individual business transactions, to extravagance of living engendered by general prosperity, and the locking up, in the purchase, of land, of an nndue proportion of what should be floating capital, applicable for general business purposes. So far from farther borrowing by the State being an aggravation of this condition of things it is the simple cure for it, carrying with it to both State and people the warning lesson which the present tightness of money is likely to impress on both, that the one must guard against any but reproductive expenditure of- future loans, and that the other must use to better purpose as individuals the share of general prosperity -which such expenditure brings to them. Tbe borrowing policy is not only a good one in itself — with the provision before insisted on — but once entered upon, it has become a necessity The native war plunged us into a three million loan which was expended in anything but a reproductive work. To this was added the several Provincial debts, mostly extravagantly and wastefully expended, so that when Sir Julius, then Mr Yogel, initiated the policy which has regenerated New Zealand and advanced her in the last nine years," in wealth, civilisation, and comfort, a fall generation ahead of what she would have been without it, an extended borrowing policy became a positive necessity. If we were to pay the interest on money borrowed and expended for the unproductive purposes of warfare — if we were not to continue to stagnate, nay retrograde, as we were doing in manv directions for the four

years previously to the policy of 1870, it was clear that we must introduce more settlers and find them the means of sharing and lightening our burdens and of increasing the general wealth of the community. ' We did this, and in doing so entered |,ori the true business of a colony, the work of colonisation, and now, having put our hand to the plough, we cannnot look back. Nor need we wish to do so, for the step was not only a wise one, but, as our increasing revenue and the progress which the colony has made in production, wealth and prestige [ testify, a profitable one also. As we have said, the one drag neeessary upon the wheel of progress is the insistance. by the people that the money they become liable for shall be wisely, economically and reproductively expended — that it shall indeed be spent on the improvement of the vast public estate which is yet nine-tenths of it a wilderness to all practical intents and purposes. That power the people have in their own hands at the very present moment. The men whom they are now called upon to return as their representatives will have the allocation not only of the proposed loan but probably of yet another before they may be again sent by a dissolution to their coustitueuts. We may have, an extended franchise, but with a newly-elected Parliament it does not at all follow that we shall necessarily have a re-distribution of seats.