NEW ZEALAND AS A FIELD FOR INVESTMENT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 937, 14 February 1890, Page 30

NEW ZEALAND AS A FIELD FOR INVESTMENT.

In a leading article the Melbourne Standard draws attention to the prospectus of the Auckland Tramway Company, which, it says, suggests possible alliances between Melbourne capital and New Zealand resources, which have been singularly overlooked. Here we are (remarks the Standard) in the comparative vicinity of a group of islands which, through woful misgovernmenfc, have been brought to the very bed rock, but the resources of which are known to be second to those of no other Colony in the British dominions. In soil, in climate, in the geniality of nature for prolific production, as well as in vast undeveloped resources of gold and coal, and iron and copper, and every class of mineral, New Zealand stands almost peerless; and yet, w hile through wild political and financial mismanagement, prosperty has temporarily ebbed, and property there of every kind is procurable at prices vastly out of proportion to its future and intrinsic value, Melbourne capital and enterprise fail to step in and take advantage of the great depression, as if it were in some country far away and under civil institutions different from our own. The case of the Auckland tramway is an illustration. Constructed only three or four years ago, in the most T perfect form and in active working order, but enterprised on a vicious principle of being mixed up in a huge land speculation, it has met the fate of others, and a forced sale has placed it now on offer by a company at close on half what it cost in sovereigns for construction a few years ago, and at a price paying ten per cent, on its going traffic, apart frem the increase promised in the intended ap plication of the modern system of electric traction. This is only an illustration of the great neglected field of enterprise and investment in New Zealand that is lying at the very door of Victorian capitalists. Lands—city, suburban, and rural —house property built in progressive and promising times, manufactories dwindling for lack of capital, coal fields, gold fields, fisheries, agricultural and pastoral lands, investments, enterprises of many kinds, all located within a few days’ pleasant steaming of our shores, and all neglected comparatively by Victorians, under the impression, it may be assumed, that depression now means depression for ever, while there is nobody of ordinary observation and intelligence but must know that depression in New Zealand is but the political and coilin'! ercial collapse, after a fearful fever, and a recklessness ef public policy that made the world stare in wonder, and that the future progress, prosperity, and greatness of a country so blest with all the gifts of Nature are inevitably assured. In the immediate present New Zealand presents opportunities for investment of rare attractiveness, and this new tramway company have certainly dropped on one of them.