The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. THURSDAY, JULY 8,1890. THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1900, 3 July 1890, Page 23

The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. THURSDA Y, JULY 8, 1890. THE WEEK.

11 Kunquam allud nntura, iiHud saplontlft dlxlt."— Jovinal. " Good nature and good sense must ever joln.",^Pop>. The Financial Statement, whiph only reached us as our last issue was going Tho to press, and therefore statement. too late for comment, is the ablest public document laid before the New Zealand people for many years past. We are glad to accept it as a clear proof that, whatever Sir Harry Atkinson's bodily infirmities may unfortunately be, the powers of his remarkable mind remain unimpaired. It is a surprise, indeed, to find that at a time when the Government is about to lose the guidance of its ohief through the total collapse of his health, its formal statement of policy should be stamped with the special remark of the Premier's strong individuality to an extent unrivalled by any State paper which has ever emanated from the present Cabinet. It only requires that the reader should put the question to himself — Could Mr Mitchelson, Mr Hislop, Mr Fergus, and so on, have separately or together produced a document of such rare analytical skill, such marvellous arrangement of detail, such absolute clearness and such" unique simplicity 1 The answer does not admit of a moment's doubt ; and, quite apart from the kindly feelings which all good men must have towards the Premier at so mournful and interesting a period of his carSer, we believe that this remarkable Statement will be felt as an epoch in the history of New Zealand. It is perfectly free from the inflated bunkum about the potentialities of the country which so frequently disfigured the powerful but altogether too astute compilations of Sir Julius Vogel, and one misses entirely from it that thin veneer over the bare balance sheets of the Treasury officials which was all that Mr Ballance could succeed in supplying as his own contribution to the financial statements of his time. It is highly original, as everyone — whether friendly or otherwise to the policy it discloses— will unhesitatingly admit ; it is speculative in the sense in which that word is applied to the field of thought, though eminently unspeculative in so far as the expression relates to the venturesome U3e of laige sums of public money ; but its chief merit as an official compilation, in addition to its refreshing clearnesß, is that it makes a firm and well- reasoned claim for a better position for New Zealand in the estimation of the Mother Country and the sister colonies, and without a trace of bounce contrives to arrest the attention by what almost amounts to a demonstration that we are not assuming among them the relatively conspicuous rank which we have every right to claim. This may be deemed excessive praise, especially from a journal which has not often had occasion to exalt Sir Harry Atkinson among hi 3 fellows, but we believe it will be the verdict of the country. No man, it is said, is quite indispensable ; but we believe every lover of New Zealand will rise from the perusal of the Financial Statement of 1890 with a pang of genuine regret at the thought that the statesman whose name stands at its head will in all probability never countersign another. Politics and sentiment mix badly. They are mutually destructive; and in our . general it is politics that kill wonndea sentiment. An occasion like General. that of the retirement from the arena of our foremost 1 statesman may well be allowed to pass as one of the rare instances where the claims of sentiment insist upon recognition whatever the political attitude of the mind may be. We do not think much of the New Zealander, whatever his creed in statecraft, who looks upon the physical collapse of Sir Harry Atkinson merely with the cold eyes of a calculating politician, and feels no pang of sorrow or sympathy with the man who has guided the fortunes of the country for so many years, and now seems doomed to gradually relinquish them into other hands by the pitiless pressure of disease. It is a favourite theme with poets and philosophers to denounce the ingratitude of peoples towards 1 those who serve them; but on the whole, among British communities at any

rate, the people usually know a time-server from an honest worker in the service of the State, and they love a statesman whose hands are clean. Such a man, with all his past political faults, is Sir Harry Atkinson ; and we feel sure that there is throughout the community a genuine and widespread feeling of sorrow at the misfortune that has fallen upon him. We agree, nevertheless, with the view of the Opposition— that sympathy must be personal only and that political criticism and watchfulness must not be disarmed, nor even diminished, by these regrettable circumstances. The vote of the Ministerial party has been given to retain Sir Harry as the guiding spirit of their policy, and that vote, it must in fairness to the Opposition be recognised, has been given upon political at least as much as upon personal grounds. Though an unusual arrangement under British institutions, it is not entirely unknown ; while in other countries, notably in America, it is considered that the chief executive action should be directed by persons not immediately attached to the Great Council of the State. But however that may be, it is certain that the Ministers must prove themselves able to fight their measures through the House by their own powers, and will certainly not be permitted any consideration on account of their chief's powerful advocacy and unequalled technical experience in Parliamentary manipulation. This being understood, we believe the country will approve the arrangements made by the Ministerial party as being infinitely preferable to losing the services — whether in power or in opposition — of the author of the Financial Statement of 1890.

The announcement by the Colonial Treasurer that " the Government are Unoxpcctod positively opposed to any Consigner, further borrowing will be somewhat of a surprise to those who, having watched Sir Harry Atkinson's previous career, have been confidently predicting a further resort to loans. We must ourselves confess to being surprised at the firmness and evident sincerity of the Treasurer's declaration. "The Government," he says, speaking of the necessity of providing funds for making roads on Grown lands previous to disposing of them for settlement, " are not prepared to recommend a resumption of ordinary borrowing for this or any other purpose." It was generally supposed, and not altogether without some justification arising out of past experience, that Sir Harry Atkinson would denounce a policy of borrowing just so long. as his Treasury was full of loan money, and no longer ; and that when the last few sovereigns were just showing at the bottom of the bag he would announce that the time had come for a policy of " progress," and so get it filled up again. But the loan account is nearly exhausted, yet we find the Government as firmly opposed to further borrowing as ever. The general public works fund, known as Part 111 of that fund— parts I and II not being moneys available for general railway construction, but devoted to special purposes — stood at the end of March last, the close of the financial year, at £426,806. There were, however, outstanding liabilities of £170,929 against this, so that the virtual balance in hand three months ago was £235,877, and the Treasurer, in another part of the Statement, tells us that this comparativelj small balance will be " completely exhausted by the end of this year." This steady adherence to a nonborrowing policy in the face of a fast disappearing loan fund gives to the retrenchments of the Government a stamp of sincerity which they could not have acquired while their declarations were coincident with a fall Treasury. It seems to us to mark a distinct advance in the claims of the present Ministry upon the country, for it is a clear instance of strict integrity of purpose under very great temptation. We doubt the "popularity" of a non-borrowing policy— indeed, the Budget in not in any way what is known as a " popularity Budget "—though we earnestly trust in the interests of New Zealand that such a policy may prevail with the electors. But it is always refreshing to see a politician stick to his colours. Most of them think more of sticking to their dollars, which is a very different thing. The Ministry which first goes through a financial year without a " middle fund " of loan money to come and go upon will be the Ministry that re-establishes New Zealand finance in the eyes of the financial world. It has not been done for 20 years.

The question of dummyism, upon which some attention is bestowed TheoidGnmo i n the Financial Statement, with and as to which the Hon. Mr Now Rot™. Richardson has already said

(in answer to a question in the House) that he is thinking of bringing in a bill to increase the facilities for suppressing the practice, seems to have assumed a novel aspect since the introduction of the ballot system in disposing of lands under settlement conditions. Formerly, dummyism meant solely the dodges resorted to by big landowners and others, the extent of whose holdings precluded them from taking advantage of land opened under deferred payments, or to whom the condition of residence was an effectual bar. However, as Mr Justice Williams remarked to Sir Eobert Stout the other day, " It is not necessary tc describe the process ; we have all heard of it before." This phase of dummyism is so well known that we need only remark that until lately it was the only kind known to fame. Under the ballot system, however, another kind of dummyism has come into practice, the culprits in which appear to be as often small settlers as big landowners. The proce3S is, for a man who wishes to have a good chance in the ballot to get a lot of his relations and friends to apply in their own name? for the section he desires, so that any one out of a dozen, or a score, or a hundred members as the case may be (according to the extent of his possessions in the way of friends and relations), may be good enough to acquire him the land he wants as against the other competitors. This piactice accounts for the statements we now so frequently see of hundreds of applications being put in for a few small sections ; sometimes even for one, when there is a specially favoured one in a newly opened block. Of course the man with the biggest family or the widest circle of good-natured

friends usually " scoops the pool," as experts in other departments of the same style of amusement would phrase it; but a 9 the person who has nominally got the section has already declared beforehand that he wants it for his "own exclusive use and benefit," the subsequent prooeedings require caution, and have not altogether escaped the eagle eyes of the officers of the law. We fancy it will be found that this new " cult " in an old science is pretty well confined to a class of settlers who are desirable to the State in a general way, and that much less harm is done by it than by the defeat of the objects of the law. which followed successful dummyism of the older kind, that of certain big landowners. We should be inclined to think that an instance of a big landowner who would venture to dummy a deferred-payment section nowadays, after the experience of the past, would be rather hard to find. The game, one would think, must be a very long way from being worth the candle ; besides which, is it not generally understood that large owners as a rule have been more desirous of selling than of buying, for the last few years at anyrate ? But whether or not the new dummyism is as bad as the old, it is obviously unfair in its operation as between settler and settler, and we are very glad to hear that the Government are about to take still more active measures to achieve the difficult task of puttisg a stop to the practice. We observe from our cablegrams that a Directors' Liability Bill, dea scribed as of a drastic charjiuiwnre of acter, has passed the House iicni of Commons, and we anticiProttction. pate that by this time it will be law. This is an announcement of great importance to the commercial world, and it is satisfactory to notice that our Government are alive to its importance, and have already announced their intention of introducing a measure on the same lines during the present session. The recent revelations of the methods by which certain companies are promoted and formed even in so unsophisticated a Stock Exchange as our own, the class of persons who become directors of such things, the consideration they secure for so doing, and the use they make of their position, have directed widespread attention to the existence of an intolerable scandal. Our correspondence columns, and frequently our department of raining news, have long borne unmistakeable witness to this unpleasant fact. Such occurrences as directors holding office for months together without a penny of interest in the concerns they are supposed to direct; or controlling the policy of large and difficult mining and crushing operations without a particle of real knowledge or experience, and with absolutely no other qualification for their duties than that of having been "in" with astute promoters; or deliberately dallying with work so as to exhaust the shareholders' patience by calls (from which, ac holders of "promoters' shares," they are themselves exempt) and so .to get the whole concern into their own hands without expense after opening it up at the cost of the shareholders— such practices as these are getting notoriously common, and within only the last 12 months the community has been victimised to an outrageous extent by shady transactions of the kind. In Australia, the astounding revelations connected with the so-called Dominion Bank, pnd the history of the Premier Building Society frauds, are types of scores of directorial swindles such as an efficient, not to say "drastic," law on the responsibilities of forming public companies would probably have prevented altogether, to the salvation of hundreds of poor people who have lost their all in these heartless marauding raids. New Zealand, besides her sufferings from the same cause within her own limits, has been discredited at Home by barefaced impositions of the kind almost as much as by debenture-postponing companies and defaulting harbour boards. We anticipate that ii' the English measure is brought into operation here a good many plausible scoundrels will be driven to earn their livelihood either by compulsory honesty or by the less refined methods practised by coarser rogues.