Some Points About our Debt.

The Seddon party has raised the public debt from £38,144,070 in 1893 to £57,403,632, an increase by weight of over 149 tons of sovereigns. The debt was increased last year by £2,339,304, which represents by weight over 17½ tons of sovereigns.

In order to minimise the patent fact that the public debt of the colony is nearing danger point the Government make the most of the circumstance that much of this money is borrowed to lend out again to people in the colony for which they pay interest to the Government. But what they don't emphasise is that there is no sufficient margin to secure the colony against loss in case there should be a drop in the price of farm products. It is true the tenant pays 5 per cent., being from 1 to 1½ per cent, above what the Government are paying for their borrowed money.

But this small margin may disappear any day from a fall in products affecting the value of land. The State may then have a wholesale surrender of leases of land which has been deteriorated by the State tenants before they gave up the struggle. Where then will the State be? It will still have to pay the interest to the foreign creditor, while the local debtor will have failed. The only true solution is to permit these State tenants to purchase their lands, and commence to pay off by instalments. There is nothing in the argument of interest-bearing money. It stands in the same category as money borrowed by the State for any public works improvements. The colony is only the agent for the foreign money-lender in col-lecting his interest, and stands to lose all the time. It is well that the taxpayers of the colony should realise this.