PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION F. 339 



' checked, we might set about discovering how we might help 

 ourselves, and probably should find that a measure similar to 

 the Bill of Mr. Macandrew, passed in the Lower House of New 

 Zealand, for an Act to be entitled " The Public Advances on 

 Land Act, 1886," would meet the case, provided that the 

 bonds were open to be purchased by the savings of the people. 



It is a frequent remark that the French are more patriotic 

 than the English are — and for a very good reason. A French- 

 man can purchase Government bonds called rentes for as small 

 a sum as £4 each, upon which he receives interest : he there- 

 fore feels that he is somebody, and that he has a stake in the 

 progress of his country. In 1886 a £20,000,000 French loan 

 was called for — it was subscribed twenty-one times over; 

 there were, in all, 247,000 subscribers, the greater number of 

 whom were for lOOfr. — £4 — all of whom received their full 

 allotment. It is small v^-onder that the French are patriotic 

 when over five millions are small landholders, and many mil- 

 lions hold the bonds of their country. 



Fancy what Australian workers might become if thus re- 

 cognised by a supercilious oligarchy ! The notes issued by the 

 Government would form the currency of the country, and, as 

 agents in production, like the marked pebbles of the Pharaohs, 

 they would distribute the rewards of labour to him who had 

 earned them. Mr. Macandrew' s Bill provided for the conver- 

 sion, on demand, of interest-bearing bonds into notes not re- 

 ceiving interest and vice versa. Mr. Verrall, on the other 

 hand, proposed that the Government should pay a percentage 

 on the note currency in the hands of the public ; but as this 

 seems to be paying away revenue with one hand, to be col- 

 lected from the general taxpayer — identically the same party — 

 with the other, the abstract advantage is not apparent. Prac- 

 tically, it might, as an inducement, smooth the way for the in- 

 troduction of the system into public favour. A well-regulated 

 State bank of issue should so far minimise the fluctuation of 

 value as to assure a borrower of money that the interest agreed 

 upon, as it became due, and the principal sum, when to be re- 

 paid, should be met by the sale of about the same quantity of 

 produce of live or dead stock that the money borrowed would 

 have purchased at the time of the loan. Everybody will 

 know that under the existing system of a forced expansion 

 of the currency at one time, and the violent contraction of 

 it at another, the borrower of £1,000 at 5 per cent, when 

 money is abundant may, when money is scarce, have to sell 

 50 per cent, in quantity more produce in order to pay the in- 

 terest, or repay, the loan, than the money would have pur- 

 chased when he borrowed it. Of course I shall be told that 

 this "arises from financial depression," or a "visitation of 

 Providence." This is the very thing I am trying to get at — 



