COLONIAL ASSETS AND LIABILITIES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2203, 21 August 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

COLONIAL ASSETS AND LIABILITIES.

This following pnrngraph from a Sydney paper is instructive and suirsrestivo :—: — " Although South Australia it just now in a condition of deep depression, with an accumulating deficit, and with taxation still unequal to the current expenditure. Mr Ebenezer Ward, a leading member of the OpppoMtion, has taken .stock of the colony's assets in a mo.vt encouraging style. The debt, he says, is a trifle compar»d with the security for it. The only drawback is that the vast security is not at present productive. They are, he says, ">80,000,000 acres of land still unsold— an phtimate which, of course, includes the whole of the Northern Territory, a district some day destined to be a separate colony. But valued at only half-n -crown an aero, this land represents £72, .300,000. Then there are the Crown lands that are held as reserves, and on which there are buildings and other improvements, which are worth at least £5,000,000. Then there is private property to tho extent of £100,000,000 in land, its improvement, and in personality, as shown by the land tax and income tax retmrns. And then there are the railways, which are worth £8,000.000. This shows altogether an asset of £185,588,000, while the debt at present is only £18,000,000." If a similar valuation were mado of tho assets of Now Zealand, wo are convinced that the results would be still more astounding, and the figures would make the debt of the colony appear very small indeed. — Timaru Herald.

The death is announced ot Louis Kiel's widow. Since the execution of her husband she had been in a state of the deepest despondency. Kecently she became quite demented, and took her two-year-old boy in her arms and started for St. Boniface, to visit the grave of her husband. She was found half-way to the village, lying on the road, exhausted, with the child in her arms. Loun Salisbury as Host, — "Only about GO people were invited atHatfield," writes the Anglo-Australian to the S.A. Advertiser :—": — " Lord Salisbury greeted every guest personally, shaking him by the hand, and then introducing him to the Countess, a very stately grando dame. The Earl then conducted us round the famous picture gallery, indulging in a running commentary on the portraits ot his ancestors, for many ot whom he seemed to teel no very extravagant veneration. Some amusement was> caused on our reaching the portrait of Sir William Cecil, by Mr Willie Wilson, ot Melbourne, stepping forward and delivering an exordium on that t.imou^ Minister, lor whom ho .said he had always felt great respect and adtriration. The Earl remarked that he was no doubt an able statesman, but that his taste in women (pointing to a portrait of the Lady Cecil of that time) was indifferent.