THIS POLITICAL SITUATION IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8035, 24 August 1887, Page 5

THIS POLITICAL SITUATION IN NEW ZEALAND.

WHAT THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD SAYS. Ik a leading article on the political situation in this colony the Sydney Morning Herald of Wednesday last says :—"Bat disorganised finance, accompanied as it always is by depression of trade and crushing taxation, is not the only source of misfortune with which New Zealand has to contend. As if the reckless and unprincipled system of finance introduced by Sir Julius Vogel was not enough to strain the resources of the colony, it has been subjected to another scourge in the shape of Sir Robert Stout's hair • brained theories about the nationalisation of the laud—the substitution ot leases for sales—the compulsory resumption of private estates—and the establishment of fancy ' village settlements,' peopled by happy Arcadian shepherds tending their flocks at the expense of the public Treasury. The colony has, in fact, become a field for the display of every conceivable experiment in the way of legislation that could find sup* port among a crew of desperate financiers on the one hand and crazy theorists on the other; and between the two the prospects of its early redemption seem to have faded so far into the background that no one can pretend to feel muoh confidence on the nubject. There can be no doubt indeed that Sir Robert Stout trusts aa firmly in his theory of land nationalisation as Sir Julius Vogel relies on his borrowed millions. But the praotical result has been almost as disastrous in the one case as it has been in the other. To preach the nationalisation of land [is simply to disturb every form of landed security ; and the moment that public confidence is touched in that direction, the capital invented in land is withdrawn ; and as land without capital becomes unmarketable, every industry dependent on the land sinks into stagnation and decay. The time will come, of course, when the colony will have shaken itself free from the rule of the empirical agitators who have contrived to masquerade so long in the garb of statesmen; when the fallacy of artificial wealth will no longer find a believer, and visionary schemes of Arcadian settlement will rank on a level with fairy taies and romances of the nursery. But, in the meanwhile, the disastrous effects already produced by a long period of misgovernment and mal-administration will have to be patiently endured. The fiery ordeal .of their present experience will probably serve to convince the electors that as no country can be prosperous while it is badly governed, the first step on the road to reform is not retrenchment merely, but the substitution of sound statesmanship for political quackery. WHAT THE AUSTRALASIAN SAYS. The leading weekly journal of Victoria says : —" At Christchurch, the other day, Sir J. Vogel observed that there was a notable absence of tone from the speeches being delivered by the candidates who are in the field for the general election. They are, moat of them, very dull reading, because so much taken up with excuses and explanations about the p&at, Nobody dares come forward with a new idea. A number of confused issues are before the country. Ministers are recommending themselves to the electors as economists of the first order, protectionist*, and staunch defenders of the Education Act, whioh they pretend is in danger. The education department is very costly, but we do not see any hint of an intention on the part of the Opposition to limit or interfere with the principles of secular education, and Sir Robert Stout's eloquence is largely wasted. Iα his Auckland address he descended to what we venture to describe as aolf-humiliating sophistries. . . . The depression which has been so long stifling enterprise in New Zealand is not directly due to the weight of the public debt, but to the extensive and over-stimulated speculation which followed upon, and was created by Sir J. Vogel's * vigorous' public works policy in the past. The colony is elowly recovering from a heavy bout, and Sir J. Vogel wants to order more champagne, as a cure for headache and sickness of the liver."