NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1293, 23 November 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It is the best part of a year sincc we showed what a dismally bad bargain was the fivc-million-loan transaction, and our "Liberal" friends have not yet recovered from their chagrin. They have been twisting the figures so long that they have at Inst thrown all the rules of arithmetic overboard. The latest of their efforts—it is our morning contemporary's—is the most humorously unscrupulous and inaccurate of all. It says:

TL his loan was issued at -£08 10s., anil tho details of the underwriting, brokerage commissions, and tho other charges published ns is cuslomarv leave a net amount available of £% fis. Id. for every jCIDO of Ihe loan. There is an option nf converting to inscribed stoelc at .ClO2, with six months' interest allowed. When this conversion is eompiele the interest payable on every .I'ICO of tho loan will be ,£3 12s. B{d.

Now, if £Øog Gs. Id. wove the not. return for the loan of which £3 10s. is paid, the interest on the cash actually received would indeed he £:) 12s. B|d. per rent. But wo are (.old that this is the rate after the conversion bonus and interest bonus are also paid, which is absurd. Six months' interest is £l 155., bringing the £96 6s. Id. down to £91 lis. Id. That is the cash received. But on conversion we give the ; bondholder £102 worth of stock, and we will have to pay him at the rate of £3 10s. per £100 stock, or £3'lis. sd. per £102 stock. That is, we have to pay £3 lis. 5d un the £102 of stock which we issue in return for only £94 lis. Id. cash. Now, £:; lis. sd. in interest on £94 lis. Id. is equal to a rate of £3 15s. Gd. per cent, as any Fifth Standard schoolboy can skow_ in five minutes. When the conversion is complete, therefore, to use our contemporary's phrase, the interest payable on every £100 actually received by the country will be £3 15s. 6d. So much for the arithmetic of our "Liberal" friends. And then, what about the people who took up the bonds intending to demand redemption ? We got £96 Gs. Id. on each bond, pay the holder £14 in 4 years in interest and pay him £100 at the end of the 4 years. We pay altogether in 4 years, in this case, £17 13s. lid. in real interest on £96 Gs. Id. This is at the rate of £l lis. lOd. per cent.

The Prime Ministers lack of a sense of humour still works to his undoing. To the "Liberals" who— of course quite spontaneously and without pre-arrangement, as is always the case when our modest Phimb Minister tries to slip silently to and fro—gathered to be comforted, he compmitied of "the attempt to decry his' Work at the Imperial Conference." "A regrettable feature of the present elections," he called it. We arc uot aware that anyone wishes to make capital out of. the Prime Minister's remarkable performance, but wo certainly cannot admit that because Sir Josepe Ward cut a deplorable figure with his "star item" we are all therefore hound to keep silence about the Conference. Everyone knows, of course, that it is wrong to talk of ropes to a man whose father was hanged; but really Sir Joseph Ward must not expect tho principle to apply here. He refused to allow the report of the Conference to lie discussed by Parliament, fearing that the scornful criticisms that came from the other delegates might get into Hansard; but he must not expect the public to gag itself, and agree not to mention what is a painful subject to him. What seems to be rankling in his mind is a statement by Mr. G. M. Thomson that he "made a perfect exhibition of himself." Mr. Thomson also read extracts from the Bluc-Book on the Conference which no doubt would prove equally offensive. As for "decrying" the Prime Minister's work, if anybody wished to do that they only had to quote what the other Prime Ministers thought of it—they did all that was necessary in that way.

Yesterday vrc had something to say upon the importance of making a beginning in the matter of putting our national house in order so as to bo able to break the economic shock ol a war. The main duty of patriotic citizcns is to strive for public and private prudcncc and economy. More,_ wc believe, can be clone through private prudence than through prudcncc in the public administration; but public extravagance based on bloated borrowings is tho cause of private extravagance*. AVhat prudence, even rough-and-ready prudence, means, is shown in sharp outlino by the American World's Work in an article of a kind that we are glad to sec is becoming common in the best American publications. "The fundamental fact that every waste and every sheer luxury is a tax—that is an economic truth hard to leani," it says. It quotes this striking extract from bulletins issued by the railroad companies to their employees: 1 2-eout postage stamp equals hauling one ton of freight 3V miles. 1 lead pencil equals hauling ono ton of freight 2 wiles.

1 track spike equals hauling one ton of freight 2 miles. t track Ivolt equals hauling ono ton of freight HI mile;.

1 pound of waste equals hauling ono ton of freight 10.J miles.

I white lantern globe equals hauling ono ton of freight 20 miles. 1 red lantern globo equals hauliflg ono ton of freight: 75 miles. I lamp chimney equals hauling one ton of freight IDS miles.

1 station broom equals hauling ono ton of freight .'ls miles.

] i'latiou water pail equals hauling one toil of freight 20 miles.

1 lantern complete equals haulirie ono ton of freight: 100 miles. 1 gallon signal oil equals hauliug one ton of freight CO miles.

"It is ingrained in us," says tho World's II orfr, "to be extravagant and not to bo, shockcd at waste." This is true of New Zealand, which has not yet begun to realise that the enormous loans raised hy the present Prime Misisteu arc s'iniply heavy doses of economic narcotics and stimulants. "Tho extravagance of the rich begets it in the well-to-do and breeds carelessness in tho poor." And the extravagaiic/; of a boomster Government begets recklessness in all classcs—and .(guarantees hardship, for later on,