The Ensign. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1911. AS OTHERS SEE US.

Mataura Ensign, 2 November 1911, Page 4

The Ensign. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1911. AS OTHERS SEE US.

Criticism directed at the finances of the country is warmly resented by Sir Joseph Ward. The mere suggestion that the borrowing policy of the Government is not in the interests cf the Dominion or that the figures in connection with the flotation of Joans should he made public seems to irritate the Prime Minister beyond measure and he loses no time in reviling in the most vituperative and undignified language those who venture- to disagree with his own peculiar methods of financial administration. He makes a. forced attempt to hold them up to obloquy, and vehemently asserts that they are traitors to the Dominion, stabbing the county in the back and ruining its credit with the foreign mon-ey-lender. To his mind the.finances are his own private concern, he is to have supreme control of the public purse and negotiate loans and disburse millions without anyone having the light | to a.sli the why and the wherefore. ! Surely it is clear to everyone that a vigorous criticism of the country's finances is the very thing that is required to establish the country's credit with the outside world. When a fierce light is being thrown over questions of finance the foreign money-lender may rest assured that the state of the country's finances is sound and healthy and that if abuses are discovered they wfel soon be remedied. The real danger lie;... in the -continuance of Sir Joseph War'd's policy of shrouding the Gov-) ernrtent's financial operations in mystery. When w> much care is taken to prev&ut the figures in connection with loans becoming known to the public and wbvn refusals are constantly being made wi.tb an aiT of injured innocence to lay bare transactions in connection with motey matters the natural result is'tluit a lot of suspicion is engendered, it is instructive at times to leavn what our neighbors think of us. The Sydney • bulletin' has recently had something to say about our finances which is worthy of careful consideration for more reasons than one. The Sydney magazine is as is well known, iit aggressive sympathy with forward | and progressive movements and would give the weight of its support to any Liberal Administration that did' not i merely masquerade under that title. As a disinterested spectator with no

axe to grind or <eat£ to serve we may be sure that it expresses only what' are its honest oaoivictions. In a recent, issue it says:—ln making hfe Budgetj Speech, lou&eph Ward, of Maoriland, I mourned over the wickedness of I tiie peopto who have Said that' Our debt is a grievoKs burden almost too great to be 'borne," It is stupd, says lou, to -look at the debts without looking .'at the assets. Well, look at the asserts. Maoriland's total public debt, less accumulated sinking funds, amount to £79,83738. ami on lou's own showing, £25,452,75? is absolutely non-interest bearing, wftile another £?'8,000,000, or thereabouts, is only '"indirectly reproductive." Included in this latter amount fos £6,871,251 pit into public holdings. The roads and culverts don't produce one penny of revenue; and the best that the barer;et can say for the public buildings is that, if the Dominion hadn't borrowed to pay for tfcem, it would have had to pay rent. Which suggests that lou never heard! of a man who 'became the owner of either a coat m 'a bouse by the simple process of saving up ami buying it. Anyhow, here is the admitted fact that over of the public debt of Maorils-fid isn't producing revenue. But if it isn't producing revenue, it at least produces two crops of interest bills a year; and, as the things don't earn 'their own interest, nothing is surer than that the interest lias to be made up out of taxation- The population of Maoriland is -now 1,008,000. Tbrt means that, even excluding the whole debt which, I, m S; ; VS i sn 't a debt, because it is for the present earning •something, Maorilanders owe about £37 19s per head. Now, lou is quite sorry for the poor nations whose debt isn't like Maoriland's—nations whose ; debt is mostly, bo says, non-produc-tive. Yet, among all the countries which lou is so sorry for, there isn't one which owes so "much as Maoriland's £3B, and there are only about three which owe even half as much. S Portugal is the horrible example of , Europe—an example of drift and muddle and damn the consequences—and even Portugal owes only £25 8s 2d per head, including everything. So the dreadful fact remains that, even if its , interest-producing debt wasn't a debt, Maoriland would still owe more than any country mentioned in the 'Statesman's Year Book,' and twice as much as any, bar, three horrible examples; yet, while Ward slops over with grief for the other countries, he doesn't sorrow at all for Maoriland, but, instead, goes on piling up more unproductive - debt that will have to Ik? paid for by more taxation. And while he does it. this shocking spendthrift has the audacity to refer to people who tell the plain facts as "ignorant and ill-in-formed persons whose inexcusable misstatements have done serious injury to our country." Nothing more need be said, but in the extract we have just quoted there is a good deal for reasonable men to ponder over.