THE FINANCES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 907, 3 January 1871, Page 2

THE FINANCES OF NEW ZEALAND.

[LONDON ECONOMIST, OCT. .15.] The clcud of ihe Maori difficulty having passed away, the colonists of New Zealand seem to be desirous to nuke up for lost time, and to bring upon themselves iu a mass all the perils of tiiat financial audacity by the iufeotion of winch new countries are prone to be caugnt. For several years past New Zealand, owing to the wars ia the North I>laud, toe political emergencies thence arising, and the subsi queue misunderstanding with the Imperial Government, has failed to progress wither in population or resources at the rate which we are accustomed to expect trom our new Colonies. We nave beea warned quite lately iu the plainest language that unless this mother country of ours is prepared to show more kiud* ness to the Colony which delights to call itself " the Groat Britain of the South" a disruption would come to pass wik

certainty, and soon. Mr Bell and Dr. Featherston who came over, it is averred vitb some message of this kind, succeeded, ss everybody knows, in obtaining from Earl Granville an Inperial guarantee for a loan of £1.000,000. If anyone dreamed that this pitiful sum would content the large ambitions of those Colonial statesmen who were receutly suing in forma pauperis for Imperial aid in the money market he will be surely undeceived by the startling policy which the Foe administration have put forward with the apparent assent of the majority ia every Province of the Colony. The financial scheme propounded on the 20th of June in the House of As semUy by the Hon. Julius Vogel, Trea surer of the Colony, embraced plau9 that were utterly new to the mass of the people, and that a year or two ago would have been scouted as wildly absurd. But the termination —as people think— =-jf the Maori difficulty has excited the Colonial enterprise of New Zealand ; and the Assembly, overawed by the Ministerial threat of an appeal to the people, has consented to a (.'rude design for encouraging, by methods obsolutely opposed to all sound political and economical nations, the speedy advance of the Colony in population and prediction. To decrec suca progress is beyond the pnwer of most legislative bo'ies, nor shall we / think highly of the way tl e New Zealanu / Assembly has chosen wi-en we come to / examine iis details. With a population estimated for the present year at a quarter of a million, with a revenue from all sources (C d mial and Provincial) amounting to ,£2,135,930, and with a debt of something more than £7,000.000, Mr Vogel suddenly proposes a plan for constructing public works, and K.-iCouraging iiumigrati n to the extent of £850.000 a year for the form r purpose, and £150,000 for the latter. To this «nd the Ministry proposed to the Colonial Assembly to take powers for borrowing six millions sterling directly for these two objects, and at the same time to get leave to deal with the public lands so as have crntrol over tlid remaining four millions. The public works designated in this plan include railways and ordinary roads—-the latter, it was urged, being especially weeded in the North Island, and the former in the South or Middle Island. Ti.e fact is that the South Island has roads, and the North Island has none, while there are no railways worth speaking of in either Island, and no easy fund for supplying either one or the other want so far as the North Island is concerned in the shape of a public domain. A sort of balance is to be struck according to Mr Vogel's proposition between the claims of N.rth and South —the former getting £400,000 for the construction of a trunk road, and the latter receiving the sam*sum iu aid of its railways. As Mr V gel thinks his road in trie North Island, the scene of the Ma ri disturbances, wdl rapiily settle the country and enhance the price of land; he proposes thai the Government shousd purchase land there to the am tint of £2OO 000, and (his point was, a'ter much difficulty, and the threat of further compilations vviJi the Maoris, accepted by the House of Assembly. Several concessions, however, were made by the Colonial Government, al though the Opposition, having to f«»ce a general election, and a community much disposed to enterprise were not pr pared to attack Mr Vogei's schemes Indeed, the extraordinary borrowing powers de mantled by the Government were so mixed up with tlie plan of a protectionist tariff Which was received favorably everywhere except in Auckland (a settlement that imports its breadstuff-) that the fiee traders could do no more than obtain a kind of respite. A compromise was finally arrived at; for although the Ministry voted for the protective tariff, they were willing to postpone its almost cenain acceptance until after the election? ; to the new Assembly; and as to the gr ai loan scheme, they moderated their terms considerably. Instead of demanding £6,000,00 J, they asked only f,u £4,000,000 (including the £1,000,000 for which Granville was induce Borne lime ago to promise a guarantee) ; and the apportionment of this sum — • —£2,000,000 for railways, £1,000.000 for immigration, and £1,000,000 to. miscellaneous purposes (embracing the (supply of wut< r to the golofhlds of West laud and the purctuse of lauds in the sortb Island)—is taken more out of the

power of the Government than was originally intended. ' The important point is whether English investors will be willing to back t« is strange plan for suddenly raising New Zealand from the rank of a second-clas3 Colony to the position of a first-rate Australian Power. Quite recently Mr Bell and Dr Featherston, the Commissioners who wrung the guarantee of £1 000,000 from Lord Granville, were assuring the English money market that New Zealand would borrow no more, and now come these imposing projects for raising millions at the stroke of a pen. It is unnecessary to say that we condemn the mischievous notion that national prosperity is to be promoted and traffic created in countries sparsely populated and imperfectly brought under cultivation by the mere construction of a railway thrcugh unpeopled and untilled regions. Railways can do much when they accompany, nothing when they go gr ping before the advancing tide of population; and a country like New Zealand, which with all its advantages can hardly hope to emulate the rapid progress of the Western States of America, would do well to pause before accepting the precarious policy of Mr Vogel." Fortunately the plans adopted by the Assembly allow time for reflection. Tiie loan proposed is to be gradually raised, and doubtless this ambitious stretch of New Zealand's borrowing power will be :=oou brought to a termination by the practical Sense of the m ney market and t'.e rude contact with reality in the shape of unremunerative public works. We have uo doubt that the folly of this bold Colonial enterprise, if ind.ed it ever takes an actual shape, will be quickly fathomed by investors in this country, and we are equally certain that a brief experience of public works, constructed on the scale planned by Mr Vogel and approved by the Assembly of New Zealond, will prove to the Colony the fallacious charac er of the reasoning on which the plea of 14 remunerativeness" is based. Even if the New Zealand Government, discrediting all their recent professions, should succeed in obtaining a part of the loan now sought for, and should apply it to the purposes indicated, the result would soon alter the popular notions ; and, doubtless, the rest of his plan would be rapidly abandoned. Unfortunately, the Colonial Goverument have called for powers to raise money at once for the purposes indicated, in their financial scheme, without waiting for the completion of the loan. This improper practice should be checked without delay, for it tends to compromise not only the public credit of New Zea land, but the Imperial Government which nas lately guaranteed a loan for the Colony.

An exchange says there are forty-four licensed houses in Chrislchurcu, being one for every 133 of the population, including men, women, and children. The other day the Nelson Examiner announced that it would, on and after the 4ii inst., appear ia a daily bom. The Mail, which is an evening daily, was to be enlarged on the 2od inst. From Wanganui we le.irn thai the Chronicle is to appear as a daily evening paper. The Wanganui Cnronicle says that iefluenza ii very prevalent amongst the Maoris in that district, —The same journal announces that Mr Walter Buller is very unwell, in consequence of being stung iu the hand by a venomous spider.