The Loan.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 850, 15 June 1888, Page 27

The Loan .

OONSIDEBINQ the pee.iili'ay circumstances in y(fe.ich the present Two Million Loan is. floated:, the price obtained and extent to which it has been subscribed must be, deemed very satisfactory. Indeed, the Government have received a cable message from the Agent-General to the effect that the operation is, in [London financial circles, considered to be a highly successful one. The price obtained—97f—-

is li above the adopted minimum. This affords a striking contrast to the price at which the Five Million Loan of 1879 had to be floated when the Grey Government left the Colony with a deficit of a million. That was a 5 per cent, loan, but there was power of conversion to 4 per cent inscribed stock. The net priue obtained for that loan, as converted into 4 per cents, was, if we remember aright, a fraction under 79. The Stout-Yogel Government have left us with a deficit of half a million, and wo get 97f for our loan. Putting the case roughly, tho price at which this loan is floated will make the interest como to about £4 Is 9d per cent, instead of the nominal j£4. This is not so bad as it might have been, although, of course, it compares very poorly with the premium at which Ne?v fouth Wales floated her 3| per cent. loan. But New Zealand not only had had to bear the malignant attacks of The Standard and other London papers, but has also had to suffer for her own action in accepting a second reign of Vogelism.