A PLEASING PROSPECT.

Clutha Leader, 20 September 1878, Page 4

A PLEASING PROSPECT.

In an article in the London Daily Telegraph of recent date, upon the statistics published by the Board of Trade in relation to the Australasian Colonies, the following occurs : — " The whole contro ygvsj that has recently gone on as to the financial and economic future of New Zealand to some extent hinges upon its alleged reckless sale of public land. If Mr Giffen will look into a valuable and interesting book, called the "Resources of Modern Countries," by Mr A. Johnstone Wilson, an economist of no mean authority, he will find not only that a bankrupt future is therein predicted for New Zealand, but that the author quotes an extract from a recent paper of Sir Julius Vogel's, in which the information Mr Giffen has not been able to get is given, the annual return from the sale of Government lands and leases in New Zealand being there stated as reaching L 820,000. We are also struck by another fact which seems to suggest that New Zealand, in many respects the most attractive of all the colonies, is not doing a prudent business. The entire trade of the Colony — export and import — was L 13,857,799, the imports exceeding the exports by L 2,200,545., 200,545. The imports, in fact, came to about Ll6 per head of population in 1876. It is extraordinary that a Colony which is but of yesterday, which is heavily taxed, and has a public debt of about LSO a head of population, should come next to the great Australasian State of Victoria as a customer for British goods — -Victorian imports bearing to population the ratio of LlB 18s per head. The natural resources of New Zealand, and their stage of development, would not lead us to expect that it could afford to import at such a rate ; and there is an uneasy feeling abroad that New Zealand is Irving not on her income, but xjartly on borrowed money and partly on the expenditure of her capital in the shape of Crown land sales."