The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1888. PROSPERITY OF VICTORIA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1765, 19 July 1888, Page 2

The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1888. PROSPERITY OF VICTORIA.

The history of Victoria for the next few years will be watched with great interest by students of political economy. For the last four or five years Victoria has been growing more prosperous yearly, but for the last 12 mouths it has astonished the world. The correspondent of the Otago Daily Times says The prosperous state of affairs in the city continues. The cable will have tnhi you of the stale of finances which Mr Gillies will have to disclose in his Budget. He will have to announce a surplus for the year of no less titan £BOO,OOO. Un tin exchange and in commercial circles things are still of the rosiest. The volume ol business is shown by the clearing house returns. For the hist week ia June this year the amount put through was more by two millions than for the si mil > r week in 1887 ; and for the six months ending June it very nearly equalled the entire amount de;ill with in 1887 namely, £165,101,633. The ttunia forspecu ation is as s'rong as ever. Tiie Melbourne Stock Exchange (know i as Exchange No. 2) has been offered as a limited liability company, 60,000 shares being offered lo Iho pub ic, whose app'ications numbered no fewer than 1,200,000, the majority b ing made before the prospectus was advertised. The Kauri T rnber Company of New Zraland is now under offer in Melbourne and Sydney. Report says that the amount paid for the rights in New Zealand was £BOO,OOO. The concern is to be given to the pubbe for £1,200,000, winch leaves somebody a very large margin of profit. Mr M. H. Divio?, the Speaker of the Assembly, is one of the principal prom ite's of the company. And whilst business and monetary movements remain so brisk, work for artisans and plentiful. The ‘‘unemployed” bay? never been able to gel up a single meeting this winter. The fib at the exhibition keeps a very large number of men employed, and la'ge buildings are being erected in in my puts of the city as well as in sotn >. of the suburbs, lhavoheard recently of many working men who h ive anived from New Zealand, and all got employment within a week. How long this remarkable absorbing power can last it is impossible to tell. Melbourne’s population is increasing at the rite of 2000 a month, and these addi ions are largely composed of the labouring classes.

The population is increasing at the rate of 2000 a month, and yet no one is unemployed- Some, of course, assert that it is the exhibition buildings which is giving all the employment, but this is nonsense on the very face of it. It would be impossible that the exhibition buildings could give employment to 2000 additional workmen every month, and it is more than probable that it does not employ 2000 altogether. It is evident that the amount of work that is going on there is enormous, when employment can be found for so many people, while the transactions of the banks indicate the commercial activity of the country. It is really astonishing, and it gives us hope that the dawn of brighter days is not far distant from us in this colony. We cannot believe that the present “ boom ” will last much longer in Victoria; it will in all probability end with the exhibition, and then Victorian speculators will look out for fresh investment for their money. Few places in the world offer a better field than JNew Zealand; it possesses all the elements of greatness j it ia immeasurably the gem of the southern seas, and so»ner or later it must come to the front. What is therefore more natural than that Victorian speculators should turn their attention to us, and give us a helping hand by infusing fresh life into us. If they do we ought to have for some years a period of unexampled prosperity. In this colony we are ruined by want of confidence. There is plenty of money, and there is any amount of room for employing it; but confidence is completely destroyed, and until it is restored no good will be done. If foreign capital came in and gave things a fillip—and there is every hope of it coming from Victoria—business would without doubt improve, 'i be .Kauri Timber Company has already met with grept success, and it is possible it may be the forerunner of other speculations.