The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1893.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIX, Issue 9943, 24 January 1893, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1893.

This Colony has not been fortunate in its official statistical compilations. Quantity has been served up in place of quality, and artistic and scientific methods have been •wanting in the presentation of figures. But Mr von Dadelzen, the new Registrar - General, has made an entirely new departure in his official handbook. He has abandoned the antiquated style of the old Blue Book, and given us a handy volume'full of concise and valuable information. He must remember, however, that Australasian students of such literature are accustomed to the high standard of excellence set up by the statisticians of Victoria and New South Wales, and that he will be expected to come within measurable distance of their scientific productions. It has been a discredit to the Registrar-General’s Department that we in New Zealand have been obliged for some years past to seek our information about our own Colony in the better arranged and more suggestive publications of Victoria and New South Wales. Let us hope that this cause of reproach is now permanently removed. But while the Registrar-General's Department has failed iu its duty, many of our public and commercial men—particularly Chairmen of Chambers of Commerce—have compiled and published most interesting statistics. One of the latest efforts in this direction is a pamphlet by Sir Robert Stout entitled “ State Experiments in New Zealand,” published under the auspices of the Royal Statistical Society of London. Sir Robert’s many critics might be excused if they were to expect under the above tide a polemical treatise of considerable warmth. When they read it, however, they will be surprised to find that within its twentyeight pages there is hardly any argument and no evidence of any desire to establish a controversial position. The writer declares m his brief introductory remarks that his object is to state facts and indicate some of t he more immediate and direct consequences arising from those facts. Without doubt we have made experiments iu the art of government, and we are well aware that statesmen iu the Old Country are watching those experiments with the closest attention. Perhaps the most interesting parts of Sir Charles Dilke’s ,£ Problems of Greater Britain ” are the chapters in which the author discusses the many ways in which these Colonies are advancing upon the constitutional methods of the Mother Country. But Sir Charles Dilke’s work is now some years old, and a paper dealing with these questions in a convenient form and under high auspices will be very acceptable to English readers. YiTe have said Sir Robert Stout does not lay himself out. for argument. After a page and a half of introduc-' tion, ho gives a list of the following functions which the State iu New Zealand has undertaken: (1) Free primary education, with assistance to secondary and higher education, iu the form of land grants, &c., &c. (2) A telephone system. (3) Telegraphs, in addition to the usual postal arrangements. (4<) Railways. (5) Water-races for irrigation and for mining (6) Life insurance and annuities. (7) Trusteeship and administration of property. (8) Guaranteeing of titles to land. (9) Labour Bureaux. (10) Co-opera-tive contracting. (11) Advisory functions to farmers, &c. The pamphlet deals ssTicttvni with these functions, explains their practical working, and gives the latest figures to show the measure of results each operation represents. Much of the detailed information is, of course, specially prepared for the English reader, who is not credited with any previous familiarity with our institutions. As for ourselves, State education, State-owned railways, Stale-owned telephones and telegraphs, State-guaranteed land titles, and State life insurance have become so familiar, being, as it were, matters of course, that we are unable to appreciate how much of socialistic effort they connote. We are therefore poor judges of the advances the Colony has made in this direction. But the Erigiish student of statistics cannot fail to gather from Sir Robert’s paper that in New Zealand, at all events, the Government is taking a strong socialistic turn. Such a comprehensive view of our Colonial State co-operation ought to place the true character of our Now .Zealand public debt before the money-lending public at Home. All the national institutions enumerated in this paper icpresent the profitable investment of capital. Another lesson of gradual develop-

ment may be learned from this comparative and comprehensive summary of our national co-operation. The process of growth is slow ; new functions are added one by one ; and it is not until a convenient opportunity is afforded of measuring the advances made in any one direction that anyone, perhaps even of our leading men, has any conception of what governing idea has been dominating our progress. We feel sure this is true of the socialistic tendency as a whole ; it is more true, perhaps, of certain particular tendencies. Take, for instance, the State Bank question. Openly proposed, it is hardly recognised, even by its limited number of supporters, to be within the range of practical politics. Its believers—the term appropriately defines their condition of mind—walk by faitb more than by sight, and they have entirely failed to catch the ear of the public and the attention of those who are devoted to public questions. The subject, no doubt, is a difficult one owing to the intricacies and subtilties of banking science, and it is not astonishing that the preachers of a new financial gospel have failed to gain a hearing. But step by step our national financial business has developed, until it must be admitted that the State has assumed for national reasons functions which belong to banking and ordinary financial undertakings, and that, too, to an extent which if focussed and brought under one management would represent a very respectable business. Under the several headings our national co-operative finance shows the following figures for 1891 : Postal notes, sold £78,808, paid £76,865.; Post Office Savings Bank, to credit £2,695,447; money orders, amount paid £582,661, issued £651,989; life insurance, invested assets £1,662,906 (of which £676,556 represents loans on policies and loans on mortgage); Public Trustee’s Department, value of 8185 estates £1,436,027.

This last - mentioned institution also, to use Sir Robert’s words, “ pays its accounts in cash and not in cheques ou the Bank of New Zealand, which is the New Zealand banker. This is practically making it a bank on a small scale, and the business is yearly developing.” During the year 1891 the cash, received amounted to £171,190, and the cash disbursed to £168,235. With the manifest fact that in every direction Government business is extending, and that each branch of business imports competition with private enterprise for the general benefitof the community, the aggregate sum of these transactions is significant enough. But we specially commend the figures to the attention of our State Bank friends, that they may see how near socialistic drift has unknowingly brought the Colony to the point they wish to reach.