Untitled

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 872, 25 August 1879, Page 2

If a tradesman whose average annual profits,- reach £300, spends £450, we know quite well the man will come to grief and end m bankruptcy. What is true if the tradesmen is not less true of a country m which the people buy more than they can pay for. This, we take to be, the solution of the present condition of New Zealand. X we import more than we export, we can only do so.by running into debt, and the Government returns of imports and exports show this to be the case. For the year ending June last the colony imported goods to the value of £9,204,019 or £1,812,468 more than m 1877-8 ; and its exports amounted to £0,185,048, or £41;078 less than m 1877-8. The imports thus exceeded the exports by £3,018,971 If we add to this the £1,177,725 which the colony paid as interest on money borrowed by the Government, without _ taking into account the foreign capital employed through other channels . m the colony, there is on these returns, broadly stated, a balance of exchange to the amount of £4,196,696 against the colony. It may be urged that these returns coming through the Customs are not exactly correct. This we admit, but the admission only makes the case stronger against us, for under a system of (id valoi-em duties it may be safely inferred that the imports are put at the lowest possible value, while there is as little doubt but what exporters will put as high aii estimate as they can upon their shipments abroad. "Those countries," says Professor Fawcett," which are largely indebted to foreign nations, must of necessity export more than they import, unless general bankruptcy follows." New Zealand, then, is m this position, and it may. be laid down with mathematical positiveness that we can no more, as a community, than as private traders, go ou spending a greater sum than we receive without bringing about commercial disaster and wide spread ruin. Coming home to our own doors, we find that the value of imports into Poverty Bay has been greatly m excess of our exports: We have consumed very much more than we have produced. In fact, we produce very little and consume a very great deal. So long as the Banks continued to allow * overdrafts, and 'moneY was obtainable from othersources, tilings went on swimmingly enough. Now that supplies are stopped, we .have come to see where we have been drifting to, and we can only hope to make up lost lee-way by increased industry, and a more economical mode of living. It is no use blinking the question, for we cannot any longer go on importing that

which we are unable to pay for. We see no way out of our troubles until land becomes much cheaper than what it has ruled of late years, and until the European can settle upon Maori soil under the assurance that he will be allowed to hold it undisputed. Poverty Bay has only its land and magnificent climate to depend on. We thank Heaven that our rulers cannot deprive us of the latter, and if we are not to be starved out of the place, we must not cease to agitate until land is obtainable at such a°price, and with such a secured title, that it can be worked profitably, and that the country is opened up by roads which will enable producers to reach a market. In ascribing .our difficulties to the stringency of the Banks, and to the withdrawal of accommodation by capitalists, we are looking to the wrong source. If the Banks had done two years ago what they have done only so very lately, Poverty Bay would have been to-day m a much sounder and more prosperous condition than she is.