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New Zealand Mail, Issue 957, 4 July 1890, Page 27

OltE thing is very satisfactory to New Zealand in the Financial Statement. It is that the Treasurer puts his foot down, on behalf of self and colleagues, firmly upon further borrowing.- Had this emphatic declaration been alone,it would have been even more satisfactory. Sanguine minds, however, finding it in company with references to the speculative squandering policies of other colonies, iflay find cause for making their mouths water.- When they read that the Victorians by iheir lavish loan expenditure are attracting away our population, and New South Wales meets them halfway with the further attraction of a vast Public Works policy, they Will be inclined to at once cry out for Protection. “ Let us protect ourselves from depletion by once more borrowing largely.” That was the cry once among the Australians. It would be curious, after all that has passed, the criticism and the reproaches aDd the ravings, to' nave the cry raised amongst ourselves. To be sure, tho Treasurer tells us that only the women and children are tempted away by this lavish Australian expenditure. The men—the bone and sinew, are saved by their superior intelligence from mistaking the Australian glitter for gold. For which reason it is that though the emigration outtops the immigration, there is an appreciable if small increase of bone and sinew. But if the borrowers dwell too much on this great fact they will quickly realise that a day will come when all the women and bairns having gona to Australia there will be no further increase of population in this forsaken country. It will be another argument for a loan. If nothing else will stop this extraordinary exodus of women and children, the most curious on record, let us of course have a loan. Candidly, we do not understand what this argument means. But we do not suppose the Government have referred to the large expending policies of our neighbours in order to suggest that after a ! l we are standing in our own light by being virtuous. Their object is to account for the superior attractions of an inferior country. The sanguine will nee in their way of puting things an argument for convincing the self-denying portion of the community against its will A good deal of the public, virtue we hear so much about is very assailable.

There is another class of non-bor-rowers who aro mischievous. Not content with protesting against the practice of issuing large loans according to the fashion of the Public Works Policy, they think their character for consistency requires them to oppose anything and everything iu the shape of borrowing. For instance, the proposed extension of the Loans to Local Bodies Act has met with violent opposition everywhere for no other reason than that it is “ only another form of borrowing.” These nou-bor rowers cannot Bee that the particular measure referred to has justified itself by results; that the proposals of the Government, so far at least as the surveys and reading are concerned, are according to the true principle of colonisation which charges the land with the cost of settlement; above all things that the surveys and reading must go on if we are to haye any further colonisation at all. There is no money at present for the purpose :—The Loan funds are dry, and land will not sell for cash. To prevent a general loan on one side, and to resist the special 1.-an system suggested on the other, and having effectually stopped all sources of supply, to ridicule an unhappy Government for not bning able to coin money out of nothing is a transparent ;■ hsiiniity. obstructive criticism <-»<■ only end m driving every body'in <i* t-p ration to a big loan. We can very well do without a loan. We must do without one until our railway system justifies itself by results. J'hat it will uo that no sensible man doubts. Even those who rave about the extent ana the number of the “ political railways” know that the system as a system must one day return a very haudsome [-'.-fit on the cost of its construction. To prove their knowledge we have their known belief in the superiority of this country and its great future. They know that these

grand islands are almost unpeopled, they feel sare that they are capable of carrying & population of millions; it follows that they nmst know that the railway system which covers so much of the country must one day pay handsomely. With our small population the lines already return three per cent, and every railway contracting engineer who sees them itches to buy them. They will justify the borrowing policy very completely at no very distant date. For the present we can all agree with the Government that it is well not to borrow. But if we are to keep our Governments out of the money market we must give them a certain amount of financial latitude. "We must expect impossibilities from no man.