The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1906

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12592, 7 September 1906, Page 6

The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1906

THE CREDIT OP THE COLONY. A eignrfioamfc admission, was made by the Minister for Lands wQien expounding his views on tihe land) question on. Tuesday oidglifc. Challenged by the Leader ofvune Opposition, in reference to hie Gore speech before the general election, in -which ho advocated the system of allowing leaseholders under the Lands for Settlement' Act to purchase 1 the freehold , , he explained tihat hie rea6on for suggesting this wae that tlhe colony might be able to use the procoeds to buy more estates for the purpose of subdivision, instead) of raising loans for 'tlhe purpose. This, of course, is exactly the lino which, 'has been taken by the Opposition). Mr McNab them went on furtlher to claim that his I plan of compelling the lar,ge freeholders to eel a portion of their properties troulidi provide lend for the smaller man, without tihe necessity of the Government borrowing money; and he added that this continual growth of our debtjj even for suoh reproductive purposes as purchasing lands for settlement, had an injurious effect on our credit, inasmuch as the British investor looked only at the total, and did 1 not etap to investigate into the purposes to the loan money had been applied/ That, curiously enough, is exactly what-tlhe critics of the Lands for Settlement Aot and the Advances to SettSers Act said would happen/ whm those measures were under discission, emd Mr McNab now admits the predictions then ' made have .been verified. * That the credit of New Zealand on tho London market is not what it ought to be considering the prosperity and general resources of the colony, is eufyficiently clear from the fact thab the Government wore coimpeJiLed to raise " the last loan in Australia at a comrparatively high rate of interest; while Sir Joseph' Ward hew intimated that, acting upon the advice he lias received, he doce not deem it advisabjo to go . to the London market for tho miHion loan for which, tho Government intend to ask this year. There are no doubt more reasons than ono which make it} inexpedient for us to try to borrow in London. It is only fair to say, for inrftianco, that -high-eliafis securities of every kind, even Console, have been in little demand for some time past, the • ohief reason being that no. leas than " 500 millions of such securities have been • created in three years, and have glutted . the market. Thore has been a great destruction of capital on the one hand 1 in tho South, African war, the Russoi Japanese war, and the San Francisco ! fire, to take the most conspicuous examples—and simsultaneously there has 1 been a demand for capital for industrial enterprises, owing to tli© activity of trade. There thus been less capital to invest in gilt-edged securities, and it can easily be seen that the present : would not be a favourable opportunity for any colony to float a loan in London. Apart from this, however, we fear thoro aro special "points" which tell fl.eainst New Zealand. There is the feeling in. regard to the Midland rail-

way, referred to by Sir Joseph Ward, and as Mr McNab admitted, investors look askance at the rapid growtfl of our, dobt without troubling to exnmino carefully into the way in which tho money is spent. Tho proposal of Sir Josaph Ward to create a sinking fund would tend in a reassuring direction, but the whole effect of thie, wo foar, wiJl be nullified by tho land proposals of tho Government, and particularly by tihe. manner in which, these have already been seized upon by the Socialistic element m the colony. That a man shafl bo compelled to sell his land, or a portion of it, irrespective of whether there- are any buyers at a fair price, is an idea bo repugnant to British ideas of the righte of property and of fairplay as between a Stato and its subjects, that we feel sure it will creato a most unfavourable impression in tho minds of the British investor. Moreover, if you.are going to limit tho amount of land a man is to hold, it is only another step to cay that he shall only hold c certain amount of property of any description whatever, and that ho must sell or give away his surplus. Tho land proposals of Mr McNab have already been publicly hailed with delight by en© Socialistic member of Parliament simply because he sees that they lead naturally to the further act of spoliation to which we have referred. "It v ppoch-making," Mr Laurenfon is reported to have said to the representative of a Ministerial journal, referring to the land policy of the Government. "For tho first- time in his"tory," he continued, "there is a do"finito proposal to limit wealth, for if "we limit the individual's holding of "land, the rest will follow naturally." Mr Hogg also is reported to havo e&id that the policy did not go as far as ho desired, but it was a very big step in the right direction. Anyone who knows the cautious attitude of tho British investor 'in regard to Socialistic proposals of every kind, will at once understand how talk of this kind, taken in conjunction with the actual proposal? ofth© Government, will make him more than ever determined that a colony where such things occur shall not receive eaiy of his money.