SPEED LIMITS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 152, 29 June 1914, Page 2

SPEED LIMITS

IN CANADIAN BOOMS SPECULATION EXTRAORDINARY YET COUNTRY PROSPERS. (Written Specially for The Post.) WINNIPEC, 15th May. If ever in New Zealand wo had gone the pace set in Canada of late years we should most assuredly have fallen over the edge of our little country. Real estate booms on the scale of the British Columbian would have left our hardiest land agents amazed. Of course, there had to bo a slump ; and there was and is j but co vast is the country and so tremendous are the resources that even the worst was not bad. Sheriff's sales thero have been; more are in prospec^, but bankruptcies have scarcely risen above normal. _ Vancouver serves for a ready illustration, for . the boom has been mainly Western, and British Columbian most of all. From its earliest infancy Vancouver boomed. It was born in 1886, and now, in its twenty-eighth year, has a population of over 200,000. In latter years the rate of increase has been 1000 a month for the city alone, and 75,000 a year for the province. New Zealanders may doubt this, for a booklet issued by a New Zealand shipping company, and dated January, 1914, states the population at 130,000. But Vancouver did not doubt its prosperity. Itj had the great West behind it, and the great Pacific Behind were billions of feet of untouched timber — too vast to be estimated — mountains rich with minerals, level lands waiting the settler, fruit farmer, dairy farmer, r« wheat farmer. Before were markets of untold capacity, in the East, to the South, or round Cape Horn to Europe, and when the Panama Canal p/oject was certain of success Vancouver thought its fortune was made. Now the word Panama falls on deaf ears. But once it had a magic sound. MILE OF HOUSES A MONTH. Their it was that real estate dealings grew in volume, gradually swelling in the course of some seven years till, in 1912, dwelling houses (to say nothing of building skyscrapers) were being erected Ut the rate of a solid mile- a month. The painting of real estate sign-boards bosame a flourishing industry, for everybody was in the real estate business. To-day the visitor may take the olectric car to the farthest limit of Vancouver's fourteen square miles and see tho signs of the boom. In tho region of "corduroy" roads, blackened stumps or standing trees with underscrub still thick bear land agents' signs. Houses have been erected with the bush all around, Vory desirable houses, too, of tasteful design and elegant workmanship, but on small sections, rarely more than a 50ft frontage, for the land was doemed too valuable for display- -even by tho extra' vagant Canadian. "Even Vancouver could not last out this pace indefinitely. So everybody said. There was bound to be a slump some day, and the wise men of the West figured out that they would see it coming. Then they v>ould sell beforo prices fell. That would have been all very well had the slump been properly stage-man-aged. It was not. It slunk in quietly before the agents gave the cue. Vancouver slept peacefully one night, for Vancouver's citizens were satisfied that the land market was brisk. Vancouver wakened the next morning and discovered that all her citizens were in the real O3tate markot as sellers. ' Of course, such an unauthorised slump could not be accoptcd as genuine. The holders of all the valuable sections said, "Things will b^e better in the fall," but they were not. "Then they will be better in the spring," but they were not, nor in an- L other fall, and another spring shows no improvement -in real estate speculations. Such a boom as Vancouver had was not kept alive by buvors who bought for use. More than 90 per cent, bought to sell again. The buyers for settlement, even with the city's annual increase of 12,000, were not more than 10 per cent. When the slump came most of the settling buyers had been satisfied ; what few had not decided to wait for a fall in prices. Thus it came about that the buyer said, "It is nought, it is liought." And he was no Hebrew bargainer; he meant, it. SLUMP— 2O PER CENT. MORTGAGES Then was seen the strange spectacle of men wealthy -in fact, and wanting money. Many citizens of solid standing were in the plight of being worth thousands of dollars, even with their holdings at a normal valuation, yet they had not sufficient to pay their rates — which it may be mentioned are on a single-tax system in Vancouver. The only course open to them was to clear their land so as to get the bchen't of a lower rating for improvements ; and this entailed some expense, for where the lumber is not of value clearing costs up to £50 an acre. Then, having cleared their sections, 'if possible they erected dwellings. They built them, painted them, papered them, put the sign "For Sale" on them and mortgaged them With popularity mortgages became not luxuries, but very expensive necessities. Bank rates rose to 8 per cent, and banks did not want real estate security. Still holders were loth to sell at the sacrifice which the financial stringency would have entailed. Mortgages they had to get, and have to get still, so they are paying as much as 2 per cent, per month for them. This is a solid fact. It appeared fantastic to mo till I investigated on all sides a 20 per cent, per annum mortgage, and' found therein not the least trace of fiction. The security was good—city sections of undoubted value — but the owner was forced to obtain' money somehow. Of course, such a transaction has only two endings to ■a short road — an improvement in values, or the Sheriff's notice-board. There are many bucli^ and though the Sheriff's board has not yet been well filled, it ia destined „to be. At present values, in tho minds of calm persons unaffected by tho boom, are reasonable, but there was so much business done on the boom market that it is btill a far fall to solidity. COUNTRY SPIDERS— WAITING FOR FLIES. Meanwhile real business has continued little affected by tho delirium of tho speculator—save that money is tight and, as speculators are not making 10,000 dolla-rs in a week (as some did), they cannot spend it, But so vast are the resources of British Columbia — vast as her majestic mountains, and to the stranger from a small land as incomprehensible, 'boundless and rich as the prairies cf the neighbouring Alberta. — that thero has been no industrial crisis. Lumber camps in the forest* and lumber mills all over tho province continue busy. The timber areas seemingly inexhaustible (though a wise Government even now enforces conservation measures) were beyond the reach of the ordinary speculator. ~ Not thai" the boom was confined to Vancouver, to British Columbia, or oven to , the West. In tho Okana.gan Valley, oft tho main line of railway, I saw rich faim lands. "Splendid," said a. cleric beside me, "but we have very few farmers." " But these lauds are occupied " " Yes, our farmers don't farm, they wait for English suckers to come and buy." 41 Not much good for, ibe prpjinceji

" No, the supply of suckers has been rather variable lately." A university man himself, but hardened by ten years' service in the North-West Mounted Police, he had somewhat of a contempt for the innocent Englishman. Lower down, the valley in the rich fruit lands of the Okanagan were most desirable fruit farms. "Twenty-five thousand dollar proposition held by Englishmen," I was told. "Trying to make it pay, but they paid too much." For fruit lands prices vary from £30 an acre with no 1 trees to over £100 with trees of the sixth year. Considering the distance of the market— one and a-half days at least by rail— and the expenses of marketing these prices arc— in American phrase— "some high." In the farthest west prairie town of Calgary twenty years have seen the development of a Hudson's Bay Company trading post (the log built post still stands) to a city of 80,000 inhabitants. Most of the growth has been in the past eight years, but all around are the grain lands of Alberta, so the boom has solid foundations. A BENEFICENT CHECK. And what of the future? Calga^y'B case is typical. Finding no moro fortunes in real estate, *ne people are going to the waiting land, where a slower but, more certain prosper tv vill be theirs.' Dabbling in settlement lands is an evil not unknown, but the West has so much to offer, and is so rich, that the burden imposed by the speculator, though unjust, is not prohibitive. Vancouver seems to suffer most. Her people hkve eaten sour grapes, and now, with teeth set on edge, refuse 3weet fruit. Panama has possibilities for the port; the grain of Alberta at least she should ship, her lumber should find new markets, dairying and fruit farming should extend ; but yet she stands in apathy. Her wharfage accommodation, for her railway and ocean terminal position, is ridiculous. All along the coast from San Diego to Prince Rupert, preparations are being made for the canal trade. Vancouver, with most to expect, does least. Reading of a project for 25 miles of dockage at the month of the Fraser River— a project which has Dominion Government support— l sought information of its progress. The most I obtained after some attempts was, "A bit of a dream. We've had too much of that."