FINANCIAL REFORM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 31, 7 February 1868, Page 3

FINANCIAL REFORM.

To the Editor of the Nelson Evening Mail Sir —ln the present want of sound information on the subject of Political Economy, 1 venture to send you a few thoughts of my own, which if not vfcry valuable in any other sense, may, nevertheless, be of some service in calling attention to a very important subject which is becoming more and more forced upon us by our increasing national burdens, and, our increasing inability to bear them. That bad times are upon hs, and that still worse time's are close at hand no one seems to doubt, aud what I wish to call attention to at the present moment is the false public opinion that is so prevalent as to how this bad state of things is to be remedied. One looks to the building of a dock, another to the making of a railway, and others again to the doing away with Provincial Institutions, to put everything right for us, but I believe all such remedies would be found wanting, and believe that the only cure lies in increased production iv the colony, and the only way in which this can be brought to pass is for our legislators to acknowledge the paramount importance of the producing classes, and to at once remove every fetter and hindrance to their wellbeing and prosperity. At the commencement of the colony the two elements in colonisation of labor and industry were appreciated at their true worth, and capital and intelligence saw that without them they could do nothing, a3 people cannot eat or live on money, nor will intelligence alone plough or reap or fence or do any of the otsier work necessary to found a colony. Hence the promoters ot the New Zealand Company sought the aid of the worki."gclasses, and the advantages of cheap land, high wages, and easy work, and other temptations were held out to blacksmiths, carpenters, bricklayers, and others, as inducements for them to embark in the undertaking, and there was little danger at the outset that these classes, whose aid had been felt as so necessary, would be hindered or thwarted in their labors, because those who had taken such pains to bring them out, and had paid their passages, guaranteed their wages, and so forth, would actually do everything to help and foster them when they were here. But latterly, these primitive times in New Zealand sei-m to have been forgotten and disregarded altogether, and in the more complex state of things 'hat now exists it seems to have been lost sight of that the simple laws that ruled then ruie now —and that labor is just as necessary to continue the work of colonization as it was to commence it; and that to legislate in such a manner as to place the whole of the necessary and unavoidable burdens of the Government of the country, together with the burdens caused and brought about by extravagance and mistakes, all alike on the inaustry of the country,is simply to kill the goo c that lays the golden eggs, and is a kind of procedure that lias been long since condemned in England, as being both unstates^anlike and unjust in the extreme. But this is tbe kind of legislature to which we have been subject.and which, in my opinion, is the sole cause of the'ernbarra'-sment of the colony at the present time, and to expatiate on the advantages of public works beyond our means, and the sins of Provincial Governments, and the blessings that would ensue from their destruction, is only to divert attention from the real seat of disease. But this sort of thing is the order of the day. We Beeni fast arriving at that pitch of elrvernes-** in language which is &aid to hide one's thoughts instead of revealing them, ami I am sure the long arrays of figures that may or may not be correct, the frequent references to Blue Books we have neither the opportunity nor the leisure to refer to, and the opposite and contrary conclusions that different senators draw from the same data which our debates and our Hansard supply so many examples ot, are enough to inspire a distaste and an indifference to politics, w! ich are fast degenerating into an arena for display, deception, and fraud on the public. Putting all this kind of thing on one side, then let me point to a different fl<-Id of thought —one which I believe is the only one that can lead to any practical results for the good of the people. Taking, then, my proposition that the true remedy of our evils is to admit the paramount importance of labor, and to at once remove every fetter and hindrance to the prosperity of the producing classes, let me endeavor to show why I think this is so. In the first place, as a sort of short-hand way of proving the paramount importance of labor, letjus imagine the producers and workers in tiie country (that is the fanners, and graziers, and their servants), not merely oppressed and overtaxed, but totally destroyed and done away with, and the merchants and tradesmen and shopkeepers left by themselves in the country. They could carry on as long as the stock of produce on hand at the time of the producers being done away with lasted, but as soon this stock "Was exhausted, trade and commerce would cease, and not only buy tog and selling would cease, but shoemaking would cease for want Of hides for the tanner ; tailoring would cease for want of wool for the manufacture of cloth; the blacksmith could no longer ply his trade for the want of iron, and also because there would be no call for him, as with the producers done away with there would* be no horses to shoe, no wheels to tyre, and in fact nothing to do. With trade and commerce stopped, customs duties would cease; with no farmers and graziers ih the country the land revenue would cease: in fact, everything would come to a stand still, and the ouly escape from annihilation to the population of the world or any part of it in which the workers and producers were taken away, ■would be for a sufficient portion of the shopkeepers and merchants, and tradesmen and clerks, and government officials, and the gentlemen of tbe community, to turn and dig the soil, and sow and reap, and herd the. cattle and flocks, and so start if*", machinery of civilisation in motioa again. Rut I fear lam trespassing on your space too much, and, with your leave, will continue my remarks at a future time. lam, &c, A Mrmbbb of. thb "Leaock.' February 5.