IS MONEY COMING INTO THE COUNTRY A CURSE OR A BENEFIT ?

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2759, 20 March 1890, Page 3

IS MONEY COMING INTO THE COUNTRY A CURSE OR A BENEFIT ?

TO THE KPITOJi. j BiH,--It may be that my mind is narrow and contracted, and that I cannot see tilings in ii broad and far-seeing manner, in , that I hold that money coming into the country is an evil. Of course [ am not alluding to money which cornea in in a legitimate manner, such as by exporting our produce; the moie money that comes to us from that source so much the better. The money that I aln alluding to is the money which the opposers of the Propertytax allude to, when they are denouncing th«) Property-tax for being the means of keeping back investors from investing their money here in New Zealand.' Mr Editor, I will go back twenty years af,o, and I will take New Zealand aa it then was before the borrowing began, and what do I see ? I see settlers who were slowly and surely making comfortable homes for themselves, their heirds were slowly and Hurely insreaaing every day, thus adding to their wealth. 'Then'came the money, and what do we see. Wβ see those who did not accept the mtuiey but kept on, iu the even tenor of their way, who, to use a homely expression, went on in the jog trot way, we seo these men comfortable, Oh, how comfortable! Well, then turn to the others, who did accept the money, and what do we see V We see lamentable and heart-breaking misery. Mr Editor, even since the reign of Stafford and Gillies, with the exception of Sir John Hall's government, with thatone exception I have consistently condemned every other government, certaialy the present Government is much less blamable than the others, but still though it is very far from being so corrupt as the othors, corrupt it is, but to a much less extent than the Governments of Grey, Stout, and Vogel. These governments were the governments of fools and rogues. Along with the governments, I also condemned the whole goings on of the people, as settlers in a new country who were striving to make homes for themselves, my opposition to the way that both people and governments were taking here in New Zealand, to raise a population, and reclaim nature into cultivation, arose wholly from ono cause, that cause being, I had lived sometime in a Western state of tho United States of America, I then saw how homes were made, and how a new country was formed, and peoples raised. In the district I was in, which was about twenty years old, that if twenty years before that time it was nil wolves and bears, it then was, as regards cultivation, very much about the same as we are now in the Waikato, that is about the same proportion of cultivated land, to what was in a state of nature. Tha district, as regards roads, schools, and churches, was about the same as we now are in the Waikato, the schools were of much plainer and cheaper construction and the teachers of not so high attainments as niira are, and aa for luxuries in a scholastic point of view there were none. The ltiout surprising thing about the roads were, that though they were as fjnod as oum, tho making of them did not cost tho aottlera a penny of money, each year at a stated timo, the settlers held a meeting and appointed a captain who was a despotic power and he, as it suited himself, went round the whole district and warned the whole settlers to be at -I certain time at a certain place, one he told to bring a shovel, another a .spade, another a wheel-barrnw, and so on, and wonderful to s.iy, undttr this system, they had rnarle t» equal ours. I du nut expect to be bf'lieved in this, but nevertheless it is true. The Hettler* , houses wwe as a whole, p\UQh inferior to we, ifc ie a fact that man j-

of them, though haviug all other necessaries in the way of food, and had flocks and herds and cultivated fields, still with all those there were many of them, after twelve or fifteen years residence, still living in their log huta, they were making a little money but they laid it out to what they thought was to more advantage than building a new frame house. As to clothes the men with the exception of the big boots), such as are worn by miners here, all their other clothes, I am referring to their Sunday clothes, at most would not cost ten shillings, their coats and pants being made at home, and of very cheap material. As to amusements, the whole cost per year of a young man who was in a position to take a wife and a farm to himself was one half-penny per year. He, along with all the other young men, on New Year's Day, subscribed a cent. each. They bought a turkey, tied him on a rail, and, at a hundred yards distance, shot at him with a bullet. The lncky one who knocked him down was the winner, and had the poor turkey. As to marriage, air the young men and women could get married. The old people of both bride and bridegroom would lay their heads together and buy a eection. This was the first and only cost. The neighbours would meet and put up a log hut, and the old folks would provide tucker for the first few years, which they (the old ponple) never missed ,and in a few yean, tho young people would have plenty of their own and to spare. Mr E.iifc i, this nay appear a poor fort of l'fi, bi.t hol'l, ibere is another side to look at; in the whole district there was not one mortgage. The word moi-tgagn, as to what it meant, would need to hare been explained to them. Compare the peace and plenty of a log hut without mortgage and the racket, misery, and worry, and mark the end; abandonment of home after years of toil and the misery with the spurious glitter of a bette» house, built on tick. I ask, which is the best ? Give me, I say, the log hut, the outcome in the end is a good house and the house your own. I will now come back, "to bringing money into the country." It may suit land agents who want a commission, or it Buy suit the owner of an unprofitable property to have a foreign investor come in and buy the property, but I would like to know what benefit it is to the country, that the ownership of such property should change hands. It will be said it is bringing so much money into the country, 1 say no, for in nine cases out of ten the owner of the property to be sold, at least the money which owns the property is foreign money and the foreign investor as buyer would just be transferring the money to the foreign seller, as the owner of the money who held the propurty on mortgage it is just the transferring the money from one foreigner to another foreigner. The country don t benefit from this ; certainly the land agent will get a commission, but 1 hold a property tax is not to bo done away with, so that land agents may get a commission. We do not want foreign money to raise booms, such booms being bad, very bad ultimately to the country, bad in more ways than one. The end is loss, keeping out the damned demoralisation to all principles of honour and honesty. If we had had no foreign money but what flowed from the sending away of our products along with what came into the country by jackeroos and by settlers, bringing money along with them, we would now have been the best off and the most contented and happy people on the face of the earth. Butter would not have been selling at 3d or 4d per pound, and beef at a penny per pound, there would have been no unemployed begging at the doors of the Government, land would never have got ridiculously high, and the settlers (the moneyed ones) would never have been led astray, and so have lost their money, the whole tendency of the money coming into the country led all classes astray, it created a boom which was spurious, and the end of this is loss all round. As for keeping out money from legitimate industry, the thing cannot be, was there any lack of money when some months ago the Loan and Mercantile Company wanted money so as to be able to carry on their increased business, had the company any difficulty in getting the money, lately when the Bank of New Zealand was crippled, had it any difficulty in getting money to put it once more on a sound footing. Getting money has been our curse ; it has half ruined us, getting more will finish us. —Yours truly. HAHArin. P.S.—I have just keen thinking that it was easier to maKe roads where I was in America than here. I was six miles from the village, and in going fur tlie mail I had only one bridge to cross. 1 ,-ilso remember when 1 was out at. night .say two miles from homp, I just took a bee line over fences and I never wet my foet, there were no swamps to uircumvent. It i.s just possible that the primitive road boards there would no do here. Mr Editor I have always said that M*ew Zealand liberals were sham and false, just fancy what sort of a Liberal a man must be who says property is not to be taxed. Here in New Zealand, men who were called Tories were true Libertilu, and men who shouted Liberalism and democratic ideas were, well I do not know what they are, for I will not insult Tories by saying these Liberals and democracies were Tories, these New Zealand Liberals are traitors to liberty, rogues every one of them are they. HABAI'IPI.