THE EXPANSION OF OUR EXPORTS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVI, Issue 71, 28 March 1892, Page 2

THE EXPANSION OF OUR EXPORTS.

(Neio Zealand Trade Review,) A London message of fche 6th inst informs us that "the Economist considers that the rapid expansion of exports from New Zealand, Queousland, aud Viotoria ia a proof that tho oheok of borrowing has had a salutary effect." If the Hkonomist is really responsible for this dictum, thafc high authority has iv thia instance oertainly not exhibited its uaual sagacity, at all events as far as the remark applies to this colony. We would rather siy that the oxpansion of our exports is a proof that on the whole our borrowed money has been jadioiously expended, and that the publio works on whioh ifc has beeu spent have had the desired effect io opening up the country, encouraging settlement and enabling the settlers to get their produco to markot. The steppage of borrowing has, no doubfc, tended to the reduction of our imports, and ia that way aifeoted the relations bobweeu imports and exports ; hufc fcho dimiuu ition in the expen . dituro of borrowed money, which has beou in graduated foroe during fcho last fivo years, can scarcely havo had muoh to do with the inoroaae of, say, our production of wool from 59,000,0001 bin 1881, to 10G 000,000 iv 1801, or that of our export of frozen meat from lfi ,214 owt in 1882 to over 1,000,009 owe in 1891. Again the largo expausiou of grain production iv fcho South Island, in the years from 1877 wa i the result of the railways aide,d by tha reaper and binder. All theso faotors wore in operation before the stoppage of borrowing, and it was the spending, not the stoppape of borrowed money, whioh, aided by othor faotors, led to fche oxpansion of our oxporta just at a time wheu it was needed to enable ua to meet our obligations,