WELLINGTON.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 5, 6 August 1874, Page 5

WELLINGTON.

{From a Correspondent.") 25th July, 1874. The Treasurer made the financial statement on Tuesday evening*. Much interest was evinced and the House was crowded in every part, and great was the exultation at the accounts of our marvellous success and prosperity which is all attributed to the great scheme. Not a word about the high price of wool and the low rates of interest on money, or of the increasing* knowledge that New Zealand possesses all the natural wealth which have made Britain great, or that much is due to the contrast to and natural reaction from the unparaleiled depression into which the Colony had fallen in 1870, caused by the low prices in Europe of our staple exports, by the enormous burden and uncertainty which had been caused by the terrible struggle in which the Colony had but recently been engaged with the Natives, the successful termination of which was brought about by the labors and anxious care of the Stafford Government, while the enormous, and to a great extent necessary expenditure by which that satisfactory result was obtained, has been persistently charged against Mr. Stafford's administration, their successors having appropriated to themselves all the credit, with that peculiar aptitude which Mr. Yogel has always shown "to assume a virtue if you have it not." The increase of revenue consequent on the change of Customs duties is assumed as another proof of the success of the policy of loans as Mr. Murray last year said would he the case. It is interesting to analyse this increase of some L 300,000. .Last year the Government pretending to wish for more revenue tried to convert the measurement duties into ad valorem duties of 15 to 20 per cent, and after strenuous opposition they were forced to reduce these rates to 10 per cent., Mr. Johnston, the member for Manawatu, stating that even at 10 per cent., the incase of duty would amount to over L 200,000. We find that the increase on measurement goods alone amounts in round numbers to L 240,000, thus showing the accuracy of Mr. Johnston's estimate as compared to Mr. Vogel's ; L 200,000 may be put down to increased taxation, and L 40,000 to increased consumption, while drink and tobacco show an increase of about L 69,000. The stamp department shows an increase of about L9OOO significantly suggestive of a large amount of bill work, and inflation of credit, and corroboration of Mr. Waterhouse's statement of the large amount of foreign capital which the foreign banks (Colonial Bank advertisements to the contrary notwithstanding) had since 1872 brought into New Zealand. It is said that one of the wealthiest of these abused institutions has 1^1,000,000 of its capital employed in JSew Zealand against L 200,000 in Australia, the chief seat of its operations, and that the same is the case, hut to a less extent with others. Thus while in other items there is a decrease of the revenue we find the increase ! chiefly accounted for by increase of taxation by the increased drunkenness and demoralisation of the people and bj increased speculation with borrowed money. With thousands of pauper immigrants pouring in it is serious to ! contemplate what would be the conse- ! quences if a crisis in Australia should cause these banks to suddenly withdraw their surplus capital from New Zealand, the more so that the Government by their Savings Bank has absorbed- and spent nearly L 70,000 of the people's savings which otherwise would have been available for private enterprises and improvements, and for employing labor, and to this extent are the private industries of the Colony further crippled. Mr. Yogel states that colonial bonds are not now so readily negotiable as they were last year, and we must therefore avoid all provincial borrowing. Does he forsee that he is near the end of the tether, that those who, to use his own word, have no interest in New Zealand but that of being her creditors, are not so gullable as the New Zealand House of Representatives, and refuse to believe that money borrowed to construct railways can be profitably squandered for political purposes ?