BORROW MORE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 257, 30 October 1928, Page 7

BORROW MORE

THAT £70,01)0,000 LOAN Qunlh lhe /?nvcr>--Borrow more." Onep upon a midnight dreary, a$ T pomleroil weak and wcery on the grim and gloomy prospect of inso|xoncy in store, —soliloquy of the Now Zealand debtor with “bankruptcy staring him in the face,” as the United Party tells him; fifty millions borrowed in lb years and fifty millions spent!—while I nodded, nearly napping, suddonlv there came a tapping as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber floor. ‘’Some late creditor,” I muttered, /r not the first by many a score.” But no; an interxal of ailen«e; then again a tapping, something louder than before. •‘Surely,” said 1, “surely that is something at. niv win dow lattice; let me see then what lherat is and this mystery explore.” Open here I fltmg the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter In there :,tcppcd an ancient raven of thi distant daps of yore. l\ot the least obeisance made he, not a minute, stopped or stayed he. But with smirk of lord or lady perched above my chamber door - Perched upon the bust of Massey, just above my chamber dnor— Perched and sal, and nnlhing more, studying this intrusixe imp, the New Zcalaml debtor remembers that the raven is a talking bird. ” 7 ell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonion shore." Quoth the Raven, "Borrow more. lie is startled at reply so aptly spoken, though the answer little meaning. little, rolexam-y Imre; but continues the catechism: ‘Prophet!” said I. ‘‘thing of evil; —prophet still, if bird or devil, tell this soul by debt o’erweighted—fifty millions <lissi;>ated, borrowed money, as jealted,—is there, is there—not to put. too fine a point upon it—is there a way out? Tell mo, tell me. I. implore!” Quoth the Raven, ’ Borrow more!

"Be. that Word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked upstarting ; "(tel thee hack in^n die tempest and the Night's Pluton ian shore!" .. . w But the Raven, never flitting, still is silting, still is croaking as before—"Seventy millions!. Borrow more!" I’he Massey bust wears an ironic smilG. Nevertheless the hapless debtor grasps a lesson— Lesson that in worth surpasses any of lhe Official Ass's Ik'hen ynu ve filed and all is n'er: "Borrowing cannot cancel borrowing, I n the Night’s Plutonian shore, this lhe password 'Borrow more!’" Not to any such conclusion did Sif Joseph Ward and his Auckland audience arrive; they li:i<l reached a better. When next he visited Auckland, Sir Joseph said, it would be as head of the Government. He did not add in corroboration anything about young men seeing visions ami old men dreaming dreams. He himself was an old man; he wouldn’t deny it. What matter? He was still young enough to think in millions. As no one there present had mentioned age. or hinted at what went, with it, why did Sir Joseph! Qui s’excuse s’accuse. But. with a wave of his magic wand this enchanter switches us back to tho spacious times of great. Elizabeth, or to the times loss remote but equally spacious of Sir Julius \ ogel, K.C.M.G. A loan of seventy millions! Sir Julius never attained to this greatness. A loan, but virtually a gift, since them is to be “not one penny of additional taxation, direct or indirect.” Prodigous! I’he glitter and the glare of it light up the whole field of war. Blin«l--cd by the flash and groping, United Party candidates rub their eyes in painful attempts to see their way. The, Mayor of Dunedin, a sane and sober-sided citizen, is said to be a United Party candidate; does the Mayor of Dunedin sec his way! What, the Labour Party sees with dismay is that any catchpenny attractions it had contrived arc outshone and obliterated by this incendiary blaze. On tho other hand the Reform Party, for reasons wo may guess, chuckles aloud. What a time! And what a world we live in! But it is less than a month to the blessed day of crisis, and then we shall see, we shall sec.—“Civis,” in the Otago Daily Times.