I am not inclined to repeat the scolding which, it is understood, my
zealous friend, Sir Francis Bell, Agent-General for New Zealand, under
his high sense of duty, administered to the brilliant author of "Oceana"
for this sole dark spot of his book. I see no sufficient cause. On the
contrary, he has given us such a charming account of the aspects and
prospects of this, the most magnificent of our colonies--for I agree
with him in believing that it is to be "the future home of the greatest
nation of the Pacific"--that certain loose or inaccurate words addressed
to him about the finances, and which he had deemed worth recording, may
well be expected to have in comparison the most evanescent effect. "One
gentleman," he says, "amused me considerably with his views," the said
views being to the effect that New Zealand would be ready, when the
final pressure came, to repudiate her heavy public debt. Another equally
vivacious informant stated that, besides the 32 million pounds of
colonial borrowing, "the municipal debts were at least as much more as
the national debt." Now this is six times overstated for municipal and
harbour debts together. No doubt the actual case is bad enough, for New
Zealand has far over-borrowed. But as to repudiation, there is not a
hint or notion of it in any responsible quarter whatever, any more than
with regard to our British Consols, although the colony is, for the
time, in the extremity of a depression, ever recurrent in such young,
fast-going societies, caused by a continuous subsiding of previous
too-speculative values. To this I may add, in reference to the smaller
issues of colonial municipalities, that of the very great number of
these, New Zealand's included, brought for many years past upon the
London market, there is not, in my recollection, as a matter of my own
business, one single instance of default, as to either principal or
interest, if we except the sole and quite special and temporary case,
above thirty years ago, of the city of Hamilton, in Upper Canada.