SEDDON V CAPITAL.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 10883, 6 February 1901, Page 4

SEDDON V CAPITAL.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE PRESS. Sir, —I see by your cables that our Premier, speaking" in Australia, is reported to have said that our colony was flourishing. Labour was well employed, and well paid, and capital was safe. I imagine that this is the first occasion on which the Premier of a British colony has deemed it necessary during his travels to assure his hearers that property in the colony he represents is safe. To my mind it shows his knowledge that it is quite open to ruestitiu, and is. in fact, a debatable point and open to a difference of opinion. If, therefore, the Premier, the man who for seven or eight years bas been busily engaged , is attacking capital in every form

considers it a matter of opinion as to whether capital is safe, what must be the opinion of those who for years post have been withdrawing their capital. To my mind there can bs but one answer, and that is that in their opinion they consider capital in this colony not only unsafe, but also tmremunerativ© as compared with the inducements held out elsewhere. It would be interesting, in view of Mr Seddon's statement, to hear Mr Russell's opinion on the suestion of the safety of capital, in view of his letter you recently published in which he offered the Government £60,000 to b? left in undisturbed possession of his own property. If his letter meant anything, it meant that our Government was robbing him of £60.000, so that his capital to the extent of this large sum does not appear to have been safe. —1 ours, etc., ' CAPITAL.