COLONIES AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY. 251 



template this enormous pile of public indebtedness in young and scant- 

 ily peopled communities with the same feelings as made alarmists 

 foresee impending ruin in the growing augmentation of the gigantic 

 public debt of the United Kingdom. It is commonly said that while 

 the imperial debt has been accumulated as the cost of "just and neces- 

 sary wars," or of wars that were neither just nor necessary, the colonial 

 debt has been contracted for the execution of reproductive public 

 works. This is not altogether so. Eleven million pounds of the public 

 debt of New Zealand were contracted to carry on war with the Maoris, 

 who were defending their territory. The Seven Years' War, which was 

 begun on the part of England to gain possession of the Ohio Valley and 

 thus increase the extent of her colonies, doubled her public debt. 

 Where is the difference between the two classes of expenditure? Then 

 most of the self-governing colonies have expended large sums in fortify- 

 ing ports, some in partly supporting a fleet, and one at least in pur- 

 chasing war ships of its own. Nor has all the remainder been repro- 

 ductively expended. The building of schools is a wise way of spending 

 money, one's own or another's, but it can not be called a materially 

 reproductive way. Governors' and ministerial residences, parliamentary 

 and departmental buildings, are indispensable, but they can not be 

 called 'assets,' especially if built of perishable and inflammable timber. 

 Even railways, most profitable of public works, are not always true 

 assets. In many of the colonies they are light railways, and when 

 traffic increases and a higher speed is required they will have to be built 

 over again and new rolling stock procured. Not a few of them, too, 

 are 'political railways,' running through a sparsely populated country 

 no-whither, and built to capture votes. Roads are only less valuable, 

 but they were made (sometimes by graduates and men of scientific ante- 

 cedents who were afterward cabinet ministers) at the wage rate of from 

 two guinas to four pounds ten per week, and are an inadequate return 

 on the outlay. Last century British loans were issued as prizes to 

 friends of ministers, and a much reduced amount found its way to the 

 treasury. Deduct an analogous, though not quite similar, item of waste 

 in colonial loans, add this to all the other non-reproductive elements, 

 and the genuinely reproductive proportion will shrink considerably. 

 Every one of the colonies, even with the fee simple of territories only 

 less than Europe in extent in their hands, would have sunk under the 

 increasing burden. Happily or not, the ever-growing wealth of Eng- 

 land has so cheapened money that the interest charge on the whole 

 Australasian indebtedness sank in five years (1890-'96), mainly through 

 conversion of loans, from fourteen millions to twelve and a quarter. 

 It may be added that the colonies which have borrowed most recklessly 

 have not been the most populous or those with largest resources, but 

 rather the socialistic colonies with big schemes on hand. 



