NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18889, 11 December 1924, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

NEW ZEALAND'S CREDIT.

A striking tribute to New Zealand was paid by the London Stock Exchange Gazette in discussing the manner in which Colonial Governments present their loans to the public, a subject on which there has been much discussion recently. " Complaint is made of the scantiness of the information given in the prospectuses of the majority of recent issues of the sort," says the Journal. ' This year nine Colonial loans have been floated in London, and in eight the maximum of pertinent financial information given related to the amounts of the sinking funds and of debt previouslyrepaid. In five cases even this minimum was not vouchsafed. The bright exception afforded a delightful contrast. The New Zealand prospectus of May was a' model of ample and yet concise statement. It becomes a pleasure to lend to a borrower which, after a full disclosure of its financial situation, is able to round off a prospectus condition with the claim that ' these figures indicate the prosperous condition of the Dominion and the economies effected in its financial administration.' There was nothing in New Zealand's record to compel the Government, to cultivate the good graces of investors with more assiduity than other oversea borrowers; quite the reverse. The Dominion had a glowing tale to tell, and told it with legitimate pride. Unintentionally, no doubt, New Zealand has sii a standard for prospectus specification by which subsequent documents of the same sort might fairly be judged. The sponsors of British oversea loans would be wise to relieve themselves of an implied, if not actual, responsibility by requiring Dominions and States to follow, so far as they can, the good example set by New Zealand," the Gazette adds. " Investors are reasonable people, and do not expect other countries to equal New Zealand's achievement in the last completed financial year of paying tj» £1,660,000 of debt and providing £1,000,000 for capital works out of surplus revenue."

BRITAIN'S POLITICAL RESERVES.

Addressing a gathering of his election workers, Mr. Winston Churchill, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, said he anticipated a period of tranquillity in politics —by tranquillity he meant freedom from political strife disturbing the country. That did not mean that there would not be great activity in pressing forward the solution of social questions and endeavouring to remedy the evils and grievances which were apparent to every one who studied the affairs of the country. But the political war which had now so clearly opened would be a very long one. It was by no means an ordinary political conflict such as that which used to be waged between the Whigs and the Tories, and i between the Liberals and the Conservatives. It was a far graver schism which ! was opening in the life of the nation. ] The attempt to foist upon Britain German ideas and Russian fashions, and to rule it, not' in its own interests, but in the interests of some wide international conception of a very visionary character had been rejected in a manner which was almost unparalleled, so far as emphasis was concerned in the electoral decisions of the country. What had happened had been that a great reserve of good sense, of strength, and of patriotism, which lay latent in the country and which it took a great emergency —as the Gormans found out—to evoke, had been thrown into the electoral battle, and it was by the employment of that reserve that they had succeeded in gaining the complete and substantial victory. But, id the moment of success, it was only prudent to look forward for four or five years, to a period when once again they would bo faced with a dire issue. It would be tho same issue. It would be the same enemy. But it might well be that that enemy would not then bo, as on this occasion, on the defense ?, when he had had to apologise for and defend gross errors of administration, great failures in promises made to the people, and to justify the, shameful projects for which he invited the support of the electors—it might well be that in four or five years they would be exposed to an attack far more formidable than that which they had just surmounted.