The Budget and its London Critics.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5056, 15 September 1894, Page 6

The Budget and its London Critics.

- — • i Even another "prosperity Budget" in ; New Zt-aland is not, our London corres- | pondenfc writes, regarded with unmixed ; approval in financial circles. There is i a vague fear in eom© pessimistic quar- i ■tera that "things are nob what they seem," and that the Ministry, in epite of its surplus of £550,000, 13 Beorefcly meditating a revival of the borrowing polioy, and the era of extravagance. This feeling j is sedulously kept nlive by some of the ■ financial papers, who seem to be afflicted ' with a species of mania in regard to the finances of Now Zealand, and though the public in the main pay little heed to their lugubrious prophecies and jaundioed views, they keep on hammering away with great pereisfcence. The Westminster Gazette alleges that the New Zealand Government is about to raise a loan of J33,25C,000. Ifj makes this total by counting the proposed issue of £1,500,000 of 3} per cent inscribed stock, JS 1,000,000 colonial console, and the which ib is proposed to raise for opening up and settling the Native lands. Upon this foundation the Gazette proceeds to utter a solemn jeremiad for the benefit of Now Zealand. Uegarding the Budget aa "revolutionary," a representative of the paper called on tho Agent-General, who assured him that notwithstanding the favourable monetary conditions, no attempt would be made at present to float a Government loan. Sir Weatby Perceval admitted that disapproval might be expressed "on theoretical grounds " of State loans to farmers, but justified the policy in the present case by referring to the difficulty experienced by them in obtaining advances at a moderate rate of interest. Sir Westby regarded the laßt Fiuancial Statement as a "A Farmerß* Budget," and defended the bounty on beet sugar as tending to stimulate an industry for which the colony ib well adapted. " Sir Weatby smiled," ssya the reporter — and, apparently, this smile is suppossd to have been invested with a more than Maohiaveliian significance— rwhen it was craftily suggested that the increased amount required to be deposited by Insurance Companies was merely another expedient for grabbing additional funds at a low rate of interest. We are not told precisely what provoked this smile— »the preternatural insight of the reporter or the exceedingly wicked ingenuity of the New Zealand Govern ment.