OUR BORROWING.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13277, 30 November 1911, Page 3

OUR BORROWING.

The following figures show for what purposes New Zealand has borrowed money since 1891, also how much is interest bearing, and how much is non-interest bearing:—

INTEREST BEARING. Borrowed for £ Railways 11,022,948 Public buildings 3,410,251 Telegraph and telephone lines 662,617 Lands for settlements 0,303,48-" Advances to settlers 6,974,030 Advances to workers 964,705 Bank of New Zealand shares . , 500,000 Purchase of Native lands 915,107 New Zealand Consols 462,165 Loans to local bodies 4,557,000 State fire insurance 2,000 Reserve fund securities SOO.OOfi Total £36,605,354

NON-INTEREST BEARING. Borrowed for £ Defence 1,145,72/ Roads and bridges 1,765,251 Harbours and lighthouses 89,683 Immigration 4,002 Tourist and health resorts 131,507 Goldfields and coalfields development 416,593 Scenery preservation 40,000 Costs of raising loans, discounts, and. conversion into stocks, etc. 2,049,640

Total £0,642,400 Oppositionists are given (says the "New Zealand Times") to quoting the late Mr. Ballance as having said that the public debt twenty years ago was enough to "make sane men pause." Taking that for their cue they pose as the wise men of their day and generation, and ask the constituencies to behold the public: debt as the crowning iniquity of Liberalism, notwithstanding that every member of the | Opposition_ has not only supported every loan, but has actually asked for

more. Now, what is the position as compared with the Tory days ? The central fact is that the whole system and management of the finances then not only made sane .men pause, but induced the constituencies, at the very first election held under the principle of the single vote, to fire the m;:n----i ngers out neck and crop, enoe and for ever. Not only was less than half the debt earning its own interest twenty years ago, compared with 86.7 p*ar cent, of the moneys borrowed since, but the rate of interest was 17J por cent, higher. Look at this:

INTEREST CHARGE PER £100. £ s. d. 1891 4 10 3 1911 3 14 6 Saving per £100 15 9 Taking the interest charge per head ■of population on the whole of tho dobt, we find it has come down like this: £ s. d. 1891 , 2 15 3* 1911 2 10 5J -.Saving per head 4 10

A leading member of th& Opposition stated in 1893 that there was a very bad time ahead. Wages wore going to fall and prices of goods were going to drop. We had come to a very serious crisis. We had come to the end of our borrowing powers. Less than two years later the Colonial Treasurer—the same gentleman who is now in charge of our finances, Sir Joseph Ward—went to. London and asked for a conversion loan of £1,500,----000 at 3 per cent.-, a rate of interest

lower than had ever been dreamed of hitherto by tho most sanguine Treasurer. Was the money refused? On the contrary, nearly six millions was offered, and the whole" financial world appauded..-. That was the real commencement of a period of steadily diminishing interest charges.