OF NEW ZEALAND INTEREST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19373, 8 January 1925, Page 8

OF NEW ZEALAND INTEREST.

SINGAPORE BASE. VOTES AND BABIES. (Fbom Gob Own Coehespondent.) LONDON, December 3. A woman professor (according to The Newcastle Chroi.icle) has been telling us that the decrease in the infant mortality rate has a direct relation with the giving of votes i o women. New Zealand, the first country to grant the vote to women, had the lowest infant mortality. The infant death rate in this country has dropped considerably during the last 20 years. There may be something in it, for it is very difficult to trace those results to any one cause. But didn’t a great scientist show that there was a relation between old maids and the corn crop? COLONIAL BORROWINGS. The Nation this week quotes Mr Massey’s Budget speech this year. r ‘l want particularly to strike a warning note about over borrowing’. Care should be taken, to see that borrowed money is, as far as possible, used only for revenue-earning purposes. This is the policy which the Government has followed eince the end of the war —that of building up against the public debt a collection of assets which will go a long way towards providing the interest and sinking fund on the borrowed millions.” “In consequence of following Mr Massey’s precepts,” says The Nation, “the credit of New Zealand stands high.” The writer then goes to point the lesson of provding for sinking funds, giving a detailed explanation of the arrangements in New Zealand. “There can be little doubt,” says the writer, in conclusion, “that the practice now generally adopted by the leading financial houses in London in regard to foreign loans—namely, definite provision for redemption within a specified period by means of annual drawings or purchases in the open market, if adopted in the case of all future colonial loans, would act as an effective check on unrestricted borrowings. It would also provide the most promising means of getting our money back.” PROBLEM OF THE PACIFIC. “I hear,” says a writer in The Manchester Daily Dispatch, “that the revival of the project of a naval base at Singapore has attracted great attention at Washington. The United States Government is at present concerned with the solution of the problem of the Pacific. The Philippines are demanding independence; Australia and New Zealand are calling in alarm for solidarity of the white races in the Pacific ; Canada is asking Australia and New Zealand to join her in evolving a Monroe doctrine for the Pacific; all eastern Asia is in a state of upheaval; China is disintegrating: “Fortunately, President Coolidge and his colleagues take the view that a British naval base at Singapore would be a good thing for American interests in the Pacific; the British Government takes the view that the retention of American power in the Philippines for some years longer would suit British policy in the East. With Conservatives predominant in both countries there is a good chance for a strong policy of Anglo-Saxon co-cpera-tion. ”