Victorian Spleen.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5257, 13 May 1895, Page 4

Victorian Spleen.

(Lyttelton Times.)

The Argus, which never loses an opportunity nowadays of heaping abuse upon this colony and all its works, has found a gross libel upon New Zealand in a private circular issued by an Anglo-French banking house to its Continental clients, and appears to be immensely pleased by the discovery. We need not stop now to speculate as to the author of this precious document, but we may point out that there is one all-sufficient reason why the great Victorian daily should seek to disparage this colony. It has from the very first bitterly ! denounced the policy of our present Government and has predicted that the development of that policy could lead only to financial disaster ; but on Saturday morning the wish that j had been father to the thought was rudely dissipated by the publication of the London prices for colonial stocks. Here are the significant figures : —

New Zealand. Victoria. 4 per cents ... 111& 106 8& per cents ... 104£ 101

Comment is surely unnecessary. The Argus will tell us, of course, that the author of that mysterious private circular, " written in French," knows a great deal more than the London Stock Exchange about the financial condition of New Zealand ; but the reader who happens to be unaffected by political bias will be inclined to trust the British investor rather than a foreign banking-house.