The Marlborough Press. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1880.

Marlborough Press, Volume XXI, Issue 1250, 26 November 1880, Page 2

The Marlborough Press. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1880.

It has been the custom in many influential quarters of late to decry the credit of the colony, and if not by actual statement, at least by inference, hints have been given that suggested repudiation. If a merchant in a large way of business is once suspected of financing with a view of keeping up his credit by any but the most honorable means, he is looked upon with suspicion, and should a crisis arise he is likely to be refused the assistance that otherwise would have been given him had his reputation not suffered from evil reports. As with merchants so with nations, except that the latter suffer in an intensified degree, and what in the one case means only ruin to the one, in the other means, if not ruin, wide spread distress and general depression throughout the country, leading to misery and want, and sometimes to actual starvation and death. Injudicious politicians sometimes, for party ends, use thoughtless language, which may be interpreted to mean that the country is either unwilling or unable to meet its liabilities, and such statement, if once credited, could hare but one result, in the withdrawal of all outside capital and the immediate realisation of all securi ties. The pressure used by the banks for the past few months would be trivial in comparison with the distress such course as this would bring about, and we may be thankful that our position is so well understood in the money markets that capitalists were not frightened at the unpleasant rumors recently prevailing. We say recently advissdly, for there are many signs that the tide has turned, and notwithstanding the large amount of our public indebtedness, we should have no great difficult in obtaining a further loan if required, and no greater proof of confidence could be shown by money lenders. What is thought of our position the following extract from Westgarth’s Circular, one of the most influential monetary journals published in England, will show ; “ Of late there has been a persistent set against the colony, in exposing all the dark side of its present case, with hardly if at all any allusion to what may be said on the othei side. Any one who has watched Intelligently the large and continuous outlay of borrowed money upon publio works, chiefly railways, for some years past, must have foreseen the crisis which opened upon the colony last year, and it was seriously precipitated both by a concurrent very bad harvest and by the collapse of the City of Glasgow Bank with its large New Zealand land connections. The most prominent consequence was a large and unprecedented revenue deficiency, amounting to no less than £900,000, caused mainly by the falling off in land sales. This deficiency, covered for the time by the issue of two and a half year’s Treasury bills, must admittedly for the present be §,d«led to the public debt, thus raising its amount to £27,000,000. “ All this is of course bad enough for a population still short of half a million, including aborigines, and it is still aggra-

vated by the unsettled and transitional state of the labor market. Men who have been getting freely for years past 10s and 12s a day do not readily accede to a reduction to ss, and that too accompanied in many cases by a change in the nature of their employment. The practical outcome of this condition is that for this transition interval their is an unusually large balance of hands unemployed, and naturally very ■* great dissatisfaction amongst them all throughout the colony. “ But let us turn now to the other side pf the picture. The present. Government,, which is entirely opposed to the colony’s excessive borrowing,-and has now‘broughtit to a close, has at • once faced the financial emergency, and by a reduced expendi-, ture and increased taxation, lias already balanced the estimates of the current year with a surplus of £41,000. The Government is about to check also the late extensive municipal borrowing. The Colony’s reviving efforts have been materially helped by the very abundant harvest of the present year. “ Again, the high price, and comparatively scant supply of labor for the colony’s general purposes for 'years past, with all this railway making, have held in abeyance many improvements and much progress that could not afford the heavy cost. These will soon have their fair chance, and concurrently the colony’s productive outcome will be proportionately increased. The reduced money wages are already nearly as effective as before, with the increased supply and cheaper price of necessaries. The rates of money, too, which, with excessive land speculation, have been for some time at 10 and 12 per cent., are now by latest accounts down to 8 per cent., thus affording a further chance for real progress. “With its network of railways, its genial climate and fertile soil, New Zealand now presents to us an apparatus of wealth production which, for a like territorial area, is confessedly not equalled in any part of the Empire. The colony is in full credit with the many strong banks, within its area for any temporary deficiency ) and its financial interests on this side have long been, and still continues to be, ably and efficiently conducted by the Crown Agents. The prompt rectification of the finances, even in the first intensity of the crisis, shows that there is power and resources as well as good will. That such a colony, whether through the want of will, or the want of as timid investors may have feared, should make any financial default even for once in the mere matter of exact punctuality, is about as unlikely, the' colony may well claim to Bay, that the British Government itself should make such default.”