A MARE’S NEST.

Evening Star, Issue 7484, 31 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MARE’S NEST.

TO THE EDITOR.^ S,R —lt will be well lot “New Zealander” 5n the’ future to make sure of his position ■before attempting to show that I have misted the public, cither carelessly or otherwise, with my figures. Will it surprise that gentleman to learn that my figures which he questions are perfectly correct \ 1 alluded in the letter referred to by him to the debt in each colony at the end of Victoria’s financial year, vi£., 30 th June, 1885, and not to the calendar year, which ends, of course, on 31st December. And now for “ New Zealander's” figures, He states that Mr Hayter gives as the public debt of New South Wales on 31st December, 1883. So ho does. But what about Mr Haytet’o foot-note with reference to this amount ? In it he gives his readers to understand that in the above amount is included a loan of L 5,500,000 floated in October, or only about two months before the end of the year ; and he further points out that no less than L 1,810,000 of this amount was not received till after the close of the year. It will be quite time enough for “Isew Zealander ” to talk glibly about “ banes, “antidotes,” and “exposures” when he is sufficiently well up in the subject under discussion to be able to discuss it. Meantime, he might either attempt to furnish a satisfactory answer to the question I put to him some time ago through tho medium of your columns or else acknowledge he was wrong. Shuffling out of a discussion when worsted is, to say the least of it, discreditable. —I am, etc., Australian. Dunedin* March 2(5.