BREAKING THE RECORD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9832, 29 May 1895, Page 6

BREAKING THE RECORD.

ANALYSIS AND CONTRAST OF MR. SARD'S COLOSSAL TRIUMPH. TO THE EDITOR.

SlEj-Cloods and darkness (in his recent eiodui from the colony) enveloped the quasimomeitous mission of Mr. Ward u> the world'; metropolis. Now the _ curtain is lifted, accompanied by blare of trumpets, pecans of praise, and gushing paragraphs. Thus tie Treasurer balks largely and poses triumphantly as the'nrst Herculean champion of the Southern Cross who has negotiated a v .hree per cent loan. Fax be it from me to beittle our hero, or those works that Shew forti themselves in him: but loyalty to truth deaands a scrutiny of the entourayt, which may also forcibly remind us that trie words of Mercury are harsh after the music of Apollo. Never in" the memory of man, or in the history of the British nation, has money been so cheap, or its purchasing power greater, than at the present moment The P.act-ileaa reservoir is tall to overflowing. Mr, Ward is precisely in the same position as the historic man of authority, with soldiers under him. To one of these martial financiers he says " Come, and he cometh" ; to another, "Go, and he eoeih"'; to his broker, "Do this, and he doeth it" Now this is what he does. A chalice, capable of containing one and a-half millions is placed in position ; the brokers, for three per cent, plus commission, turn on the fluid. The vessel fills by gravitation, while all the world and his wife go into hysterics over the wonderful exploit. Where, I ask, is the heroism, astuteness, diplomacy, or wisdom? A third-class mac would be equal Co the occasion, for in this favourable connection to ask is to receive, to seek is to find, to knock is to gain admittance to the plutocratic temple of Croesas„ enshrining its dazzling pyramids of pure goldr If we widen oar view, the operation will prove to be infinitely more easy. It looks paradoxical, bat in a plethoric money market it is no: the first-class gilt-edged security, but the beat of those offering which attracts coin.

In South America there is an interesting group of States (physically lively, ana nascent) where the earthquake and tornado revel, and where revolution and blood-shed-ding are the order of the day. In untold millions British capital has flowed to these Republics, . and found premature graves over which there will be no resurrection. They have borrowed, squandered, sinned away their day of grace, and barred ouit themselves from the London Exchange. The United States have been irrigated and fertilised in a thousand ways by waves of British capital, but strikes, labour disiputes, creeping paralysis iu all the great industrial, mercantile, and agricultural centres, hare swept over the land like a simoom from Florida to Maine, from California to Massachussets, and American securities and undertakings have partially lost flavour and charm iu London.

The Dark Continent (with its great possibilities and phenomenal yield of diamonds, gold, and ivory), attracted countless millions of treasure ; but this El Dorado, the coveted prize of the great nations of the earth, is far less fashionable and attractive as a field for enterprise and capital than of yore. Australiathe land of the Golden Fleece, whose stones are silver, and out of whose hills gold may be dug, lived up to her privileges iu the fine art of borrowing. But her rotten finance, iniquitous tariff, suicidal strikes, disgraceful companies, bursting banks, ghastly ruins of corruption and extravagance (haunted by attenuated spectres of want and misery)—all these, in spite of titanic recuperative power, have rendered her far less comely, winsome, and fascinating thau in the bonny days of youth. Using metaphor, we may trot out the four horses Argentina, Stars and Stripes, Africana, Australia. These were normally hot favourites; but by ponderous weight have been frightfully handicapped. Beside the quartette, we place Zealandia—gone in the back sinews, showing marks of Vogelian pressure, but fresh as a daisy when compared with the field. Hor jockey, Ward (after influenza, looking pale and anxious), assisted by his Stock Exchange backers, walks over the course, and amid the throwing up of hats and (acclamations of a prodigious cloud of spectators, wins hands dawn the Three Per Cent. Stakes, with its trophy of one and ahalf millions. This, forsooth, is the marvellous feat over which the world has been gushing! Antithesis : Little Witheford (unaided by State credentials) found himself a "stranger in a stange land." Nothing daunted, he withdrew from his girdle a resonant ram's hotn, out of which he engineered seven blasts; thereafter, not Jericho, but the walls of Babylon tottered and fell—the mighty city lay at his feet. The Lords of the Admiralty, in full-orbed splendour, were bearded in their den, pointts were given in geography and our white Calliopean elephant was within an ace of being sold to the British nation. Better still, from his sleeve he withdrew three Coromandel prospectuses, and succeeded in negotiating the sale of these golden treasures to eager city magnates. So phenomenal was the feat that, like clamant boys at the end of a peep show, the public earnestly desired more. Oh, gentlemen, we are all afloat "like little wanton boys swimming on bladders in a sea of glory"—we hope not far beyond our depth. Some, however, will sink, while others, like Witheford and Ward, may swim to the happy shore, the former with coin in his pocket belonging to Invincible No. 1, the latter with sovereigns in his valise to gild the first act. in a tentative melodrama called " Money-lending to Small Farmers," the third act of which may prove an eye-opener to the unsophisticated taxpayer. And over all this we rush into paroxysms of delirious joy ! Can it arise From plenary inspiration of the cable ?—I am, etc., John Abbott. Hurstmere, May 27,1895.