The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1887. NEW ZEALAND’S DEBT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1584, 19 May 1887, Page 2

The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1887. NEW ZEALAND’S DEBT.

The report of the Financial (Statement has now come to hand and we are let into the secret as to the amount of our liabilities. From a table attached to the Statement \>e gather that the gross public debt of the colony amounts to £37,558,558, from which the sinking fund, which amounts to £3,366,216, must be deducted. The net public debt of the colony is therefore £84,192,387, and the amount we have to send to England annually as interest is £1,727,293. This is a heavy burden to bear, but if it were all we should not feel it. In another table attached to the Statement the assets and liabilities of the colony are set down as follows: ASSETS.

It will be noticed that in the table where the matter is fully discussed the public debt is placed at £34,192,837, After deducting the amount of the sinking fund, while in the table showing the liabilities of the colony it is set down at £31,688,849, or £2,503,788 _ less than it ought to be. Perhaps it is pardonable to try to make things look as bright as possible for the colony, but it does not say much for the compiler of these tobies that at page 13 of the Statement the public debt should appear as £34,192,337 while at page 17 it is set down at £31,688,349. shows gross carelessness, and is sufficient to cause one to doubt the accuracy of the whole statement. To the £89,491,324, therefore, we must add the £2,503,788 omitted, and this will give us £91,995,112 as the total debt of the colony. It is under the mark to place this at 6£ per cent, all round, and at this rate our annual bill for interest will come to about £6,079,682, or about LlO 10s for every man, woman, and child in the colony. To pay this we have nothing but our exports, and as for the last few years we have exported only between £ll and £l2 per bead we are left very little pocket money after we have paid our way. The interest we have to pay amounts to about £lO 10s per head, and our exports to about £l2 per bead. We are thus left with about £llos per head to feed and clothe us, while we want over £l3 per bead to pay for the goode which we

mport from other countries. Our position is glorious ; we are going to the bad at the rate of about £ll per bead a year 1 There is something worse still. Our exports are set down as dose on £7,000,000 a year, but this is a fallacious estimate. We have received a return giving details of the values of the various goods exported from this colony, and we find that a great many of the articles enumerated are not the products of this colony at all, but have been imported first and exported afterwards. This return shows that last year we exported—

Now, everyone knows that one drop ot spirits such as are above enumerated is not manufactured in the colony. They are not the produce of the colony, and the colony does not profit anything by them. We cannot quote in full the other imported articles which are set down amongst onr exports, but from a cursory glance at them we have come to the conclusion that their value is about £2,000,000, arid Ibis would reduce the total value of the export of real New Zealand produce to about £5,000,000 a year. We shall refer to this subject again.

WINCHESTER JAM FACTORY. Mr J. J. Ellis, broker for the Winchester Jam Factory, has commenced canvassing again (or shares, and is meeting with much encouragement. Up to the present time he has received applications for shares to the value of £SOO, and doubtless will have no difficulty in raising the £SOO more which will be sufficient to float the company. 1 he provisional Directors have resolved not to do anything until 1000 shares, representing £IOOO, are sold, and consequently persons who intend to take up shares ought to do so at once, so that preparations may be made for next season, If the new tariff which is now before Parliament pass it will greatly improve the prospects of fruit growers and local jam factories. Hitherto fresh fruit had been allowed to enter free while local fruit was rotting on the ground in this and other districts, but it is not that which interfered with the fruit industry so much as the quantity of boiled fruit and fruit in pulp which was imported free of duty by jam makers, A duty of 2d per ib will be placed on fruit in pulp and boiled now, and this will result in keeping these Mr tides out of the market and giving a monopoly to New Zealand fruit. Perhaps those whose fruit has rotted on the ground in past years will see when they come to get a good price for it under the new tariff, that after all Protection is not such a bad thing as some people paint it. It does not appear to us ■ very sensible policy to import fresh fruit into this colony while the local product is going to absolute waste. In 1884 we imported £81,977 worth of fresh fruit, while people throughout the colony could not get sale for their own fruit. The cause of this extraordinary anomaly is that it is cheaper for Dunedin and Christchurch people to get fruit from any of the other colonies by steamer than to get it from the country districts by train. We have always held that the high rates charged by the railway was crippling rural industry just as much as competition with imported goods was crippling town industry, and this proves how truly we have guaged the condition of things. We have shown that to increase the Customs duties and lessen railway freights is the best way to develop the indus'rial resources of the colony, and Sir Julius Vogel in his Dunedin speech endorsed our views on the subject, A box of fruit will cost nearly as much as it is worth to send it by train from here to Dunedin or Christchurch, and so long as that is the case local fruit growers would find it advantageous to have a factory at their own doors which would consume all the fruit produced. Under these circumstances we strongly recommend people to take up shares, so as to enable the local factory to be established,

Real Property Personal Property ... Railways Telegraphs Lighthouses Buildings Harbors Water-Supplies Goldfields ... £ 116,376,659 82,540,315 13,453,363 523,727 150,895 2.250.000 2.500.000 500,000 Total £218,294,959 IXABILITIBI. & 31,688,349 6,616,273 31,321,109 20,365,593 Public Debt, deducting Sinking Fund Debt of Local Bodies... ... Debts on Mortgage ... ... Debts exclusive of Mortage ... Total ... £89,491,324

£ Brandy to the value of ... 1436 Genera )) ... 959 Gin ft ... 199 Rum it ... 417 Whiskey ft ... 2906 Total. • «•« ...£5917