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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIX, Issue 9992, 22 March 1893, Page 4

The London agent of the Press Association again tells us -with imposing solemnity that cicy men—the mysterious people who control the financial world are afraid that the fiscal policy of the Ballance Government will be extended to the taxation of all holders of New Zealand stocks. Really this bogey of what may happen is being run to death. The Opposition speakers and writers have tried in vain to discover some effective method of attack, and now they are driven by their repeated failures to take up for the hundredth time the battered weapons which testify to their own defeat. There is no more ground for supposing that Mr Ballance contemplates a descent upon our English creditors than there is for assuming that Mr Rolleston, if placed in power, would repudiate our national debt. The suggestion is nothing less than a confession of Conservative weakness. It shows that the party now in opposition is afraid to meet the Government on the plain issues of policy and administration, and must invent its facts to colour its arguments. It is a very great pity that the people who resort to these contemptible methods cannot be induced to meet their opponents on a somewhat higher platform. The change would he to their own credit and to the advantage of the Colony. Mr J. M. Ritchie of Dunedin, a gentleman who is certainly not biassed in favour of the present Government, has put this question of English feeling towards the Colony so fairly that we are tempted to quote his remarks. “I do not 'think, 1 ” Mr Ritchie said, just after returning from his recent visit to England, “there is much feeling abroad with reference to the policy of the present New Zealand Government. I am of opinion that what has been said in this connection has been considerably magnified. Mr Perceval appears to be doing a good work. The people at Home look to the general effect of the legislation rather than to the incidence of taxation. The fact that the Colony was able to do with less taxation, if such were the case, would have far more effect than the methods by which the taxes were raised, or the class upon which the taxes were imposed,” These remarks confirm the views expressed by Mr Battley, General Manager of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, after his return from a simiiar visit to Great Britain, and they should carry conviction to the electors who have been disposed to listen to the cries of the Conservative alarmists.