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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8928, 17 December 1887, Page 4

It is certainly something new to find Sir Julius Yogel raise hia voice in Parliament against large borrowing. Yet this phenomenon has actually been witnessed during the debate on the Loan Bill, introduced by the Atkinson Government. And this is all the more remarkable that the loan the Government ask the Honse to sanction is a comparatively modest one. s lt amounts to a million, which is very unpretentious

I indeed when compared with borrowing which Sir Julius S£ bo brief time ago urged the count ? / endorse. That, m his estimation s!° prove the salvation of thecolonV- 5* when addressing a public meeting i n ?u d ' city, he pathetically asked the ! 5 whether they would "give the co2 another chance !" That was hia vi! y borrowing then ; but, since then a; ° f have changed; and "the case altX alters the case." Sir Julius is now ® ted office, and in his opinion half a mill;" • sufficient for public works at nres Q U This is something new without a dni Never before was Sir Julius known \ ' humble himself so far as to Bea to , borrowing on so paltry a scale Th reason of this transfiguration, how is very obvious. . Large loans are hiTT' light, and next to his pleasure in king them is the pleasure of eDfitlr f them after they have been floated h 8 this twofold luxury is at present denS Yet, true to his hereditary instinct J" views with alarm the proposal of'th Government to give a guarantee that aft* raising the loan now under considerate the colony should borrow no more fin 1891. Before that time he cherishes th hope of being restored to the Treasure benches ; and what satisfaction could h find in the restoration without the pri/ lege of fingering large sums of money ? The fact that he is nothing unless he ca contrive to be a gigantic borrower he of course studiously tries to couceal and also to obviate the difficulty he would ba placed in if no further borrowing could b resorted to till 1891, by conjuring Up (J! great danger in which the colony iLkj. be placed if bound by such a pledge. In this feigned solicitude for thecolonv' safety, the followers of Sir Julius, as ff ys to be expected, cordially and join with him. Forgetful of the l Uat advocacy of large loans they were wont to indulge in, they, too, are now clamorous that borrowing for the present should b 9 restricted to half a million. Such mat. vellous economy is, however, of too sudden a development to be considered genuine or safe ; and the . Government have, ac« cordingly, determined not to allow the country to be placed at the mercy of its operation. They have intimated their decision to the House that the Loan Bill must pass; but have also expressed their willingness, if the House think when in committee, that certain works might be delayed, to reduce the loan by the amount that may thus be saved on the Public Works estimates. This is a fair position for the Government to take and one which the House will act wisely in accepting. At the same time it is to be hoped that, in the process of elimina« ting or lessening the votes for works la the various parts of the colony, our members will take care that Auckland ia not sacrificed as ■it has been in former occasions of the House being suddenly seized with a perverse fit of economy. Even in the scale which the Public Works Estimates have been framed on, Auckland has had scant justice meted out for her as compared with other places which might be named. And, as the members now clamouring for economy hail for the most part from the South Island, it would only be fair that the districts they represent should hare an experience of .what the North had to sutler in 1886, when by some manipulate ing, which Sir Robert Stout told his constituents they could easily grasp the nature of, Auckland was hit the moßt heavily, and Wellington next, while Otago and other favoured places in tha South escaped with hardly any loss It is only right and proper that this timi the positions of the iXorth and South should be reversed.