AT IT AGAIN.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXI, Issue 1041, 6 July 1894, Page 3

AT IT AGAIN.

In consequence of what New Zealand has suffered from reckless public borrowing, and the lavish expenditure and waste of public money, there has existed for a considerable time back such a horror of more public loans that anyone who . should have suggested another loan would have, been looked on as a traitor to his country, and any Government proposing to borrow would have been thought not fit to hold office for a moment. It would seem now however, that public opinion, is beginning to change on the subject, and that there are people in Wellington and Dunedin so audacious as to suggest the propriety of considering whether or not another loan of a few millions is not advisable as an absolute necessity in the present state of affairs. Certainly to commence borrowing again would be a bold move and a very dangerous one. There seems, however, to be some plausible excuse for proposing a loan at present. To borrow again for no other reason than to relieve the depression and give the colony a spurt, would be a piece of folly. The temporary benefit which a loan would give to affairs would probably be followed by a depression worse than, before, like that worse depression which follows on the drinking of whisky or other alcoholic stimulant to excite hilarity and remove for a brief time trouble and anxiety. There would more beplausibleexcusa, however, for borrowing in order to do some specific work in the way of completing partly formed railways so that interest might be obtained on the large amount of money already sunk in them -and the completion of such lines there is good reason to suppose would be of great service in the way of opening up new country and encouraging settlement on the land. There is no doubt, however, that great danger attends the entering again on the policy of borrowing. That good policy, of which Major Atkinson set the example, of rigorous economy in the manageraeut of the public funds —a policy which the Seddon Government has hitherto endeavored to follow, with happy results to the Colony — would, with the influx of a few borrowed millions, be likely to come to an end and more careless" management ensue. There can be no doubt that the late good behaviour o£ the Colony —its determined abstinence fiom more borrowing and its struggle to economise and do public, works put of revenue instead qi loans—has been regarded

very favorably in the Old Country and has considerably raised the credit o| the Colony as shown by what the Colonial Treasurer teH us in his speech a Oamani chat the Colon3''s 3} per cents have at present the high position of 103 anchtha't to-day the New Zealand stocks stand pre-eminently higher th.in the stocks of any other colony. Probably the result of the Colony resorting to borrowing again will ln j unpalatable to our British creditors and be regarded at home among financial ists with disapprobation. If, however, we do go in for another loan, it would bp, woll if. the money could be scheduled for specific purposes and applied to no other use whatever. It would seem doubtful however, if any Government for the time being would allocate the money in strict observance of any scheme of application of the same. If, for instance, a portion of the loan was to be applied to the completion of the Ota^o Central and Catlins River Railways, there is no knowing Uow long it might be before Government utilised the money for such purposes.