13

E.—6,

" As a consequence of the policy which has been pursued, our people have in the short space of thirty months been taxed in destruction of the value of property to the extent of not less than 10,000,000,000 (£2,000,000,000), or more than the total cost of the recent war to both North and South, the shrinkage thus enforced having been accompanied by bankruptcy of savings banks, insurance companies, and other moneyed institutions, to the utter ruin of thousands and tens of thousands of depositors and stockholders, men and women, wives and children ; by a destruction of railroad property and impoverishment of its holders that counts by thousands of millions of dollars ; by a collapse of that coal region which had given to the Union, in the time of its greatest need, nearly all the force required for maintaining the blockade, for running our mills and furnaces, for enabling our people to contribute to the revenue; by a destruction of demand for labour that causes hundreds of thousands of men and women to remain idle when they would desire to be employed; by an almost entire annihilation of that immigration to which we ought at this moment to be becoming daily more and more indebted for the importation of working men and women, whose annual value to the nation counted by hundreds of millions, by a decay of moral feeling consequent upon the daily increasing difficulties of obtaining food, clothing, and shelter, by any exertion of honest effort, by an almost entire disappearance of that activity and energy which prevailed among our people when they were animated by hope—by that faith in the future which has now, by aid of successive finance Ministers who have followed in the footsteps of Secretary McCulloch, given way to an almost universal feeling of despair, and by a total disappearance of that national self-respect, which had existed when, setting at defiance the threats of foreign bankers, our people in the days of its most serious trouble gave to their Government all the aid it needed, and thus established monetary independence such as we never before had known, and whose destruction has, by Secretary McCulloch and his successors to the present hour, been since so sedulously sought." With thousands of millions of dollars of mortgages covering a large portion of the real estate of the Union, with money at 6 to 12 per cent, in the commercial centres, to 20, 40, and even 60 per cent, in the agricultural and mining districts, we can indeed sympathize with the venerable prophet of protection, as in his 85th year, he weeps over the unhappy condition of the country he loves so well. May he live to see to see the day when prosperity shall return to it in as unbounded measure as even his heart can desire. The monetary state of America can be better understood by a study of Mr. Thomas Walker's letter on the land question. Let the Government suddenly resume all the money in the banks, which is due for land purchases, and then what would be the difference between the monetary condition of this colony and that of the United States ? I am, &c., Sydney, Ist October. Augustus Moebis.

No. 5. The Undee Seceetaet for Public Woeks to Mr. A. Moeeis. Sir — Public Works Office, Wellington, 20th October, 1877. The Hon. the Minister for Public Works directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the sth instant, enclosing copies of letters written to the Sydney Morning Herald relative to the American dredging system, and to thank you for the very useful information therein afforded. I have, &c, Augustus Morris, Esq., John Knowles, 92, Liverpool Street, Sydney, N.S.W. Under Secretary for Public Works. By Authority: Geobge Didsbttbt, Government Printer, Wellington. —1877. Price 9d.] 3—E. 6.