On the whole obligation the per capita interest charges yearly total more than the per capita principal of the United States interest-bearing debt! Much of the interest outlay, however, is regained by the State in loans to settlers, workers, and local bodies. In his 1911 financial budget, Sir Joseph Ward classified about sixty per cent of the national debt as "paying interest and making profit," while about ten per cent more was declared to be "indirectly interest-bearing."
Will New Zealand be able to meet its obligations? Will it be able to repay at the specified time the 26,000,000 dollars which the 1912 official Year-Book declares is due in 1914-15; the 150,000,000 due in 1929-30; the 81,000,000 due in 1939-40? Not without renewals and fresh loans. In the Public Debt Extinction Act, however, a plan is provided whereby, with renewals to repay short-dated debentures, the existing debt can be repaid within seventy-five years. This act—passed in 1910—also provides for the repayment of all future loans within seventy-five years of their contraction. Extinction is to be accomplished by annually setting aside a certain sum for investment. Possibly this scheme will succeed, but that has been questioned, among others, by Prime Minister Massey when leader of the Opposition.
Fortunately for New Zealand, it has good assets. In 1911, Sir Joseph Ward valued its public assets at twenty per cent more than its national liabilities. Crown lands alone are worth considerably more than one hundred million dollars, and railways fully one hundred and sixty
