The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1884.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 7279, 23 September 1884, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDA Y, SEPTEMBER 23, 1884.

In tho Financial Statement (under the heading “Public Works”) tho Colonial Treasurer said: already seated that we shall want £IOO,OOO additional aid this month, and additional aid each succeeding month until tho third million of the 1882 loan is raised. My predecessor had made arrangements for the disposal of another £IOO,OOO of d(3‘ ficiency bills, for authority to issue which he proposed to ask the House. I am happy to say I shall not require to trouble the House to give this additional authority. I have made arrangements to obtain half a million in anticipation of tho million loan next year, to bo supplied to us as we want it. What possible good can there be in coming to tho House for dribblets of £IOO,OOO when wo know tho existing liabilities require five times as much for their satisfaction ; besides legislation is unnecessary.” It is amusing to note how Sir Julius Yooel constantly indulges in a tone of assumed superiority over those who had tho management of affairs before he so kindly consented to save the country from impending ruin. But, though he delights in suggesting comparisons between his methods and those of bis predecessor, inspection will generally show that what Sir Julius professes to regard as improvements are in fact nothing of the kind. What he says about the deficiency bills and his arrangements for anticipating half a million' of next year’s loan is a case in point. Wo do not know what Major Atkinson’s final proposals would have been, hut no exception could reasonably be taken to his plans as far as they wore disclosed. Sir Julius Yooel, however, brushes them contemptuously on one side, and gets over the difficulty by “ arrangements ” for anticipating half a million of next year’s loan. When this announcement was made there were many, even of his own followers, who displayed curiosity about tho particulars of what was to be done, and who thought that he might with advantage have been a little more explicit. On looking into tho matter we find that: what Sir Julius Yooel has made arrangements for doing is clearly contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the law. The third section ot the New Zealand Loan Act, 1882, after empowering the agents to raise tho loan, concludes in the following words :—“ Provided that no greater sum than one million pounds sterling of the said three million pounds sterling shall be raised in any one year, commencing with the year 1883.” We are now in the second year and two millions have already been raised, Tho sixth section of the Act contains a provision for the issue of short-dated debentures pending the raising of the loan by tho agents in Great Britain ; and the eleventh section is as follows:—“The amount of all short-dated debentures issued under this Act, together with all debentures or other securities issued under the third section of this Act, outstanding at any one time, shall never exceed the sum of three million pounds sterling.” Thus, though in tho third section, which refers at all events primarily to the operations in Great Britain, there is provision that not more than a million of the loan shall be raised in the course of any one year, there is no such express limitation specially with regard to the short-dated debentures. But it is amply clear that the Legislature intended to limit the borrowing in any one year to one million, and that the provisions with regard to the shortdated debentures were introduced solely for the purpose of enabling the Government to anticipate the proceeds of tho year’s borrowing in the Home market, so that there might be no delay in carrying on works in the earlier portion of each term. It certainly was not intended that the one million borrowed at Home for the year’s service should be supplemented by money raised on short-dated debentures under the same Act. But we can see no other way in which Sir Julius Vo&el can carry out his great financial operation—this arrangement which, according to him, is so much superior to that of his predecessor, who thought it right to come to Parliament for authority — than by tho sale or hypothecation ot short-dated debentures in excess of tho million already borrowed for the year. The lawyers may, perhaps, say that ho can do so without breaking through tho provisions of tho Loan Act of 1882, though we much question the unanimity of their opinion on that point. But we repeat that the proposed operation is directly contrary to tho spirit of tho Act. We venture to think that the assumption of authority on the part of the Colonial Treasurer to act in this matter without the authority of Parliament was, to say the least of it, ill-judged, and we prefer the equally efficacious and far more straightforward method which Sir Julius Yooel professed to regard as totally unsuitable to the circumstances.