CURRENT TOPICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1288, 5 November 1896, Page 34

CURRENT TOPICS.

KEEP THE MONEY IN THE COUNTKY.

We notice from the published accounts that one-fourth of the million authorised to be raised by the Aids to Public Works Act of last session has been raised in the Colony. It has been raised evidently at par, and we conclude that it has been raised at not more than 3.V per cent, interest. Our authority is contained in Ministerial statements made in public. A great question here arises. There is a great plethora of money in the Colony. From the banking returns for the last quarter we observe that the deposits not bearing interest in the banks exceed those at the same period last year by very nearly a million sterling. This money is there, without returning a shilling to its owners. That is a great fact. Out of that fact it ought to be possible to get a loan placed locally; the balance of the Aids to Public Works Loan of last session. We suggest to the Government that they should try the local market. It was always Mr Ballance’s idea that the Colony would always find sufficient money for the reasonable wants of the Colony. The banking returns certainly show that the late statesman's views were well grounded. By trusting to the local market we shall avoid syndicates, brokerage, and all the expenses of a somewhat expensive amicus curice. We shall also avoid all the smart quips and cranks which on such occasions are hurled at the ci'edit of the Colony, which is (to parody a famous poet) butchered to make a speculator's holiday. Last, but not least, we shall avoid the drain of interest outwards. That will be the true complement to the statement of the Premier that only £2 10,000 of all the late loans makes any call on the taxpayers' pocket. In these days, when we are wondering how the excess of exports over imports can pay our interest, public and private, it is an enormous advantage to have creditors who are of us, and among us, and with us. It is an advantage, in other words, to enrich ourselves by borrowing from ourselves. Instead of having to send away moneys to enrich absentees who pay nothing towards the cost of government, and the expenditure of the civilisation which makes these payments possible as well as necessary, we shall be furnishing, by our progress, assured incomes to our citizens. It used to be objected, and with some show of reason, that all attempts to raise money in the country must fail, for the simple reason that the demand would be supplied from without, there being no supply within. But the logic of facts has answered the objection. The banking returns prove that the money is here, content to lie in banks useless. The time has come for the realisation of Mr Ballance’s dream. One thing we should advise in conclusion. The loans locally raised should be for short periods. The reason is plain. The rate of interest is falling constantly and rapidly, and therefore short dates are the outcome of our position. Short dates of interest, no matter what the rate may be, are better for the owners of capital than indefinite periods of no interest at all. That ought to govern the situation. We have every confidence that the Government will not interfere with the government of the situation. BANK OF NEW ZEALAND. After the storm of political discussion we have the calm of a shareholders’ meeting. The main thing of interest was the reading of the president’s report. It was not like some reports of old, it is true, and well it is that there was dissimilarity. Many of the reports of old were not founded on fact, and contained figures that were thoroughly unreliable. In this respect the report of last week was in marked contrast. Indeed, but for the unreliability of the old reports, there would have been no occasion for a president, or a presidential report containing all the things which the report of last week contained. What was the position to which the compilers of the old balance-sheets had reduced the bank’s business the president’s note of 1891. placed sufficiently on record. It did so, as we were reminded by reference to the same in the president’s report on Friday, in terms euphemistic and graceful. But the plain English of it was unmistakable ; the bank was insolvent. We may talk as much as we like about less than half the assets earning anything at ail ; we may pub it as nicely as we like, but the fact remains that the old management is responsible for a loss of four millions sterling, a bankrupt business, and the deception, impoverishment and misery of a great many people. It is a very bad page in the history of banking. The bottom of that page was reached in 1891, and the leaf turned.

The new page, on which is now the history of two years, reads well. Thanks to the intervention of the State remedies have proved possible and feasible. The State guarantee, in fact, saved the bank from the grave of bankruptcy. It has now the largest proportion of liquid assets of all the Australasian banks, instead of the smallest. It enjoys an increased area of earning power, by the purchase of another bank on remarkably good terms; it has been separated from the greater bulk of its dead weight of unprofitable assets, which represent the bad management of the past; it is left with a very happily reducible and rapidly reducing minimum. These facts make the difference between life and death. Political malevolence has exhausted itself in indecent attempts to prove that the millions guaranteed by the Colony have been thrown away on a worthless institution for the purpose of bolstering up the credit of one man. The whole banking policy of the Government has been traduced by being described as a policy of safety to Mr Ward, at the public

expense. Facts have proved that the bank has been saved, that a terrible financial crisis has been averted, that the Colony practically stands to lose nothing, and that Mr Ward’s position never had any* thing more to do -with this policy than the man in the moon.

The chief thing for the shareholders to consider is of course their position. It is not by any means a bed of roses. So much has been evident for a long time. But to whom do they owe the loss of their capital, and the danger and distress of their later time ? To their own directors ; to the men in whom they confided, to whom they never put a plain question, from whom they were always only too glad to accept dividends and gratuities without further trouble than was necessary to hold out both hands and greedily cry “ thank you.” The reconstruction has been a har« thing for them to go through. But that if not the point of the situation. The point ii that, but for the intervention of the State they would have had to go through a verj much harder time. Instead of losing tin whole of their reserve liability, they have lost one third of it only, and they ma; regain it, and some of the original capita besides. In the meantime, the Stat standing in the gap on their behalf i sure, in case of mishap, to be the large? loser. After the history of the pas the State cannot trust to the shareholdei to control the management. The Stal must itself control the management, ar that the shareholders must be content 1 accept. The only thing the bank no requires is rest. We trust its rest will n be broken any more by the echoes of Pa liamentary strife. All good honest poll cians should unite in discountenancii those pestilent firebrands, who, in spite irrefragable evidence and the verdicts two committees, still persist in trying 1 snatch political capital out of the history c the banking legislation. MR HUTCHESON AT THE OPERA \ HOUSE. If there is anything in a great meeting, Mr Hutcheson is sure of election. Certainly it was a great meeting, as great a meeting as we have ever seen in the Opera House on any occasion. It was not greater than any meeting ever assembled there, but we have never seen a greater. There was this speciality about it, that it was organised by the workers of Wellington: it was their particular meeting: the prepared evidence of their strength. Obviously, the first thing to be done is to compliment the workers on their organisation. They are showing an admirable spirit of solidarity, a spirit which is determined to resist all the influences which make for diversion, digression and dissension. A great feature was the presence in force of the women of the city. It is greatly to their credit that on the first occasion on which the Democracy of Wellington has shown itself to be organised, they should have been present in such numbei’s. When the franchise was given to them, the question most commonly asked was what can they do with it. They are showing that on that subject they have the most definite and complete ideas. They are evidently aware of their political wants and determined that they shall be supplied. Their presence at the Opera House in such large numbers, in such a great and earnest crowd, js, we repeat, a great credit to their intelligence, enterprise and public spirit. Everyone was, of course, anxious to see the kind of candidate that was presented to them. Mr Hutcheson very soon satisfied his audience on that point. To describe him as a practised speaker and first-class elocutionist would be absurd. We have* no wish to burlesque a capable man with extravagance of flattery. But we have no hesitation in saying that Mr Hutcheson made a first appearance which was in many ways superior to the first appearances of many candidates who have been successful on the Wellington hustings. He accomplished, to begin with, the difficult feat of keeping his head. He knew what he had to say, and he said it without circumlocution or hesitation. He covered a great deal of ground, and he did it in a short time, contriving to say all lie had to say in a few minutes over an hour. Earnestness was the leading characteristic of his speech from first to last. A man who has thought out his political creed, with the aid of experience gathered in many countries ; that was the special mark he made. He impressed us as one who had seen men and cities, marked their characteristics, and drawn his conclusions about the great social problems perplexing all who dwell in the great centres of civilisation. A man with a backbone, evidently with just ideas, as he made, clear with his references to the Asiatic question, the eight hours question, the Civil Service, and many another great subject of popular interest. The leading note was reached when he said with caustic humour that the Conservatives have much to thank the much abused Seddon Government for. He wasted no time on the subject, he merely pointed to their measures and said, “ Show me one among them that is unjust.” But the plea is that the Government which passed these measures has always had a most servile following. “Dumb dogs” is the favourite phrase, as we all remember. Yet no one can point to a single measure on the Statute Book that contains a single unjust provision. The Democratic candidate who has picked out that point, and made much of it, has presented credentials which cannot be refused.

It was not the only good point he made. His sjjeech was full of passages strong with common-sense and justice, and regard for others. We congratulate the workers oh the candidate they have chosen to support. It is matter of common knowledge that the Labour members of the last two Parliaments have made for themselves a great record. It was predicted, on their behalf, at the opening of the first of the two afore- * said Parliaments, that an era of Red Republicanism, domineering class selfish-

ness and obstinate ignorance bad begun. But they have proved the prediction false, by their excellent behaviour. As Mr Hutcheson said, they cannot be charged with a single unjust measure. As he might have said, they have distinguished themselves by qualities the very opposite of those assigned to them by prophecy. Ho members have ever been more distinguished for diligent study of the subjects brought before them ; none have been so assiduous in their attention and attendance ; none have been less vituperative, and with them obstruction in all its forms has proved an equally unfamiliar art. The Labour members have in fact distinguished themselves by maintaining most worthily the highest and best traditions of the leading Parliament of Australasia. Their particular . constituents determined to gain their rights by Parliamentary procedure, in the best constitutional spirit, and the men they sent to Parliament have justified their choice amply during the six years they have served. Mr Hutcheson’s speech stamps him as eminently worthy to take his place in that distinguished band which has given earnest consideration to every interest in the field of practical politics. The fact that he has begun better than any of them is a guarantee of success in the Parliamentary career to which he is, with honourable enterprise, aspiring; a success which is sure to come to him at the hands of his fellow citizens. With his talents, experience, determination careful habit of scudy and high sense of justice, qualities of which he gave ample evidence on Monday, the Labour candidate will make an excellent representative of the city of Wellington. MR DUTHIE. The worst thing that Mr Duthie has ever said publicly, and we feel sure unwittingly, is that he is not a professional politician. What we wish to convey is that Mr Duthie has, without intending it, insulted a great many of his fellow-members. A professional politician being one who cannot serve his country without the help of the honorarium, Mr Duthie ought to be the last person to indulge in a sarcasm of that sort. He has been long enough in politics to realise that the excellence of public work does not depend on the possession of a bank account with a large balance. We have nothing but praise for the public spirit which Mr Duthie has displayed in the course of his political career. But we can not withhold the same praise from many of his fellow-members who, with nothing but their pay as members, have been animated by a similar high feeling. Mr Duthie seems to be just now in a state of perplexity. It reminds us of the perplexity into which Richard of Gloucester, commonly known as “ Crookback,” was thrown by the deputation of citizens who wanted him to assume the Crown of England. A great many clergymen have been a prey to the same feeling, when they said “ Nolo episcopari,” but they all wore mitres subsequently nevertheless. Far be it from us to insinuate that the little ceremony of Monday was arranged by Mr Duthie himself, with a view to taking up once more the relinquished burden of the political sceptre. We will only remark that three years of political rest would do more for him than another uneventful Parliamentary service of three years. What he wants to make him a perfect politician is a careful study of political questions, undisturbed by the stress of political turmoil, in which men often mistake their intentions for political principles. We trust, therefore, that Mr Duthie will be wise enough to save himself from his friends.