Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924. NEW ZEALAND'S STRONG FINANCIAL POSITION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16458, 17 June 1924, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924. NEW ZEALAND'S STRONG FINANCIAL POSITION.

If politicians would remember, that the financial position of the country is generally proportionate to the exertions of the people, we should hear less, on the one hand, of Ministers taking to themselves the) sole credit of sound national credit, or, on the other hand, of political opponents decrying that credit in order to injure the administration. A country, may be so mismanaged by a Government that in spite of the energies of its people, and l ho full employment of‘their savings, stored up as capita!, the country is found to bo making lee way and its credit failing. The fact- that its credit is good and that money is obtainable from London at more advantageous rates than it is by many older countries founds a strong presumption that the country is decently managed. Tt is always open to an Opposition to urge that the country has such a great capacity for development (hat it would develop faster if the administration were transferred to their more capable hands. They may go further, and say that the country’s inherent strength is so great that il is prospering in spile of mismanagement. To discredit tliei country’s finance in order to injure the party in power is a weapon that has a double edge. It is dangerous, unfruitful in result, and encourages the drift among the diseo'iitended toward socialistic experiment. No one would wish to see a. perpetuation in office of the same persons or party. Fair opportunity always comes to the. vigilant who know how to wait. The shortest road to public favor is fair play, coupled, allowably enough, with hard hitting. Whatever

faults the .Massey Administration may he chargeable with, it is not open to serious attack on the side of finance. Mr. Massey has made out a good case I'm providing a. surplus to meet the loan months of Ihe financial year, without having to .resort to undue flotation of Treasury Hills or other methods of expediency. A Treasurer, with a surplus, considerable taxation reduced already, and prepared to still further reduce the still lingering war burdens, in the immediate, future, and who is able to get what money is needed at the favorable rates indicated by the success of the last loan, is well fortified against attack. Ko patent is this, that the promise, to lighten further the burden of taxation, is now made the ground for attack by the leader of the Labor party. He will not consent to any further relief of direct taxation unless concessions are given to Ibe State employees and others which must perpetuate the imposition of crushing burdens upon industry, and still further raise th° cost of living. But the best security for New Zealand is, that- it is not. and never has been, dependent upon any particular statesman. or party, for its progress. New Zealand has made herself, as she is today. by the exertions of her people. Many mm have posed as the ones to whom the country’s great prosperity is to be attributed. It is true, that some of these, and those the cues who haveclaimed the least, have done much for the public advancement. But it remains true, that the solid position of New Zealand at the present day. has been attained by the enterprise and hard work of its people.

PUBLIC' OPINION. While New Zealand politics are unuttorablv dull and uninteresting the same cannot be said of the outside world Before the papers reach us by mail which speak of statesmen as if firmly entrenched in power, we hear by cable of the same men’s successors as already appointed. Our last files from Europe spoke of M. Poincare and M. Millcrand as great forces to be reckoned with. Both statesmen are now relegated, if not to obscurity, at least to back seats, in the political stadium. M. Millerand, after forcing a direct vote of confidence, in himself as President, has already resigned and announced his intention to go back to the role of the professional advocate. Of M. Poincare’s intentions, we are not so fully informed. He may be tempted to follow the bad example of numerous Englishmen, and earn an in-come-through publicity. The mysteries of European Cabinets, which, too often, 1 only consist of semi-plotting and narrow mindedness, always find a public, willing to pay for their revelations. The excuse made for publication, is the necessity of living. Opinion in England is growing that public men, who have served their country well, should upon retirement be placed beyond the necessity of publishing a semi-veiled story, either apologetic of themselves, or told to the detriment ' of those with many of whom they have been politically associated, in order to be- able to live up to the society, which during their tenure of high office, they have become a part of. Nothing is more remarkable in modern times than the almost sudden eclipse In public favor of great reputations. Public favor resembles a summer’s day which closes in quiet darkness, without a hint of the storm, to sand many a good ship to the bottom the next- day. It was thus with the late President Woodrow Wilson. It was so with Mr. Lloyd George. It was ‘ so with Lord Kitchener. It is so to-day with M. Poincare and M. Millerand. Every one of these men deservedly rose In great eminence. Every one had quite exceptional abilities. Of no one of them , could it ba said that he had betrayed his high (rust, or'had done other than his host for his country. Nothing happened. Why? A thousand reasons might be given in answer to the question. Of these possibly mine hundred and ninetynine would be founded upon misconceptions or uni ruths, for which political bias is nnblusliingly pleaded in justification. In Lord Kitchener's case, his tragic fate saved him from knowing, what we know now. that he had lost the solid support of the nation which emphatically had forced him upon Mr. Asquith as the oneman to take 'charg'd of the War Office when Great Britain had declared war against Germany. Whether Lord Kitchener’s loss of popular favor will be justified in history, yet to be written, no one knows. His decline followed the rule. It was a sign of the times. It was not so, even as late as Queen , Victoria’s rule. Democracy, and the great growth of the newspaper press in the eighteenth century, must share, either the credit or the blame, for the chameleon-like standing of public men, in all countries favored with responsible government at the present day. In the early days of (be Times newspaper, the policy of the Walters and their great editors, was to ascertain public opinion, and follow it. Now Peers of the realm comnete against each other as to who , can buy up the papers which extend all I over am educated land, which Grent 1 Britain has become, with the object of themselves forming public opinion, to i suit their own personal views, and' to adj vance the interests of their own particu--1 lav candidates for public favor. These, ■ at least, can he relied upon, not to be j wholly ungrateful. Australia and New j Zealand have so far escaped, from this j attempt to form public opinion, in order Ito suit personal activities. Lord Burn .ham in a striking address on the in-

fine no?! of the press on the development of Empire, paid n compliment to the Aostrnlnskin press. He said “The news, papers of the Commonwealth of Australia tim! the Dominion of New Zealand are more English than many of the English papers, which have been so largely ah t°red by American novelities." Although particular English papers have at ! times started what amounted to almost a I vendetta against individual public men. and have succeeded in bringing about their ostracism from public life, on the whole the press has for the most part fairly supplied (V> f-ipts—the doings and the utterances of the public leaders of the dnv —and public opinion has, to use Lord 'Rosebery’s phrase, “amid a silence ! in which you could hear a leaf fall” i arrived at its own verdict, and followed un that verdict with summary execution, j The man, who is to hold public opinion ’ to-day, must recognise it as a force, and , play up to it. Whether it can be play- | ed np to with a rerervation of indepen- j donee, and without producing leanness of J soul, lias perhaps yet to be discovered.