A WAY TO CURE THE DEPRESSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8020, 6 August 1887, Page 3

A WAY TO CURE THE DEPRESSION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—lt has astonished me thai;, no withstand ing all the talent we have willing to represent us in Parliament, not one has volunteered even a •' happy thought" of how it could be made better. My idea is to induce colonists to purohaee colonial debentures, go that the interest may .be paid and spent in the colony. We f>ll know that 5£ England were paying the interest on her national debt to foreigners, the result would be that we would UDd a bigger depression, there. Now, if any private individual, upon coming to this country, could buy Government debentures bearing 5 per cent., and found tint the banka would only allow 4 per cent on fixed depoaita, their inclinations would be guided by the additional 1 per cent, on thair capital, and thia would keep the interest in the colony, instead of leaving t;he country. The Government might give a sale note to any purchaser of so many debentures bearing 5 per cent., and cable to their agent ict London to buy so many 4 per cent, as mnoh. below par as possible, and if bought at £97 there would be the additional interest covered for three years. Only the other day we read that the Colonial Bank had a million of money on fixed deposit. Now, it is reasonable to euppoee that if the Government were allowing them more than the bank by 1 per cent., that the most of this deposit money would drift into debentures. It would be worth while to find out how much money there is on fixed depoiits in the whole of New Zealand, and then calculate bow mnch interest would be saved from leaving the colony if it were forced into New Zealand Consols, whioh could only be brought about by the banks reducing the rates on fixed deposits to 4 per cent, or even 3 per cent, Here is the ide», let statesmen work it out* —I am, &c, Hafpt. Thought. August 5, 1887.

A correspondent writes to us respecting a local in our yesterday's issue:—"l quite agree with the writer of the paragraph in hie admiration of Mr, Spurgeon's generosity in offering to forego a portion of his stipend, which, however, is not the only instance of the kind ; but when he urges it as a precedent to be generally followed, I would remind him of two or three trifling facts which may show that others may feel some difficulty in doing the like. Mr. Spurgeoa is, 1 believe, the best paid minister iu Auckland, and actually needs it less than most. He is a young man, single, and with no one dependent upon him, besides being one of the two only children of a weil-to-do father. Most of the other ministers are men with wives and families to b« fed, clothed, educated, and started iu life. Without, therefore, detracting one jot from the merit of Mr, Spurgeon's action, I would like your readers to recognise that h's is a somewhat exooptional case."