TO CHECK SPECULATION

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 31, 5 August 1925, Page 4

TO CHECK SPECULATION

m In discussing State Advances operations last night the Minister of Lands expressed the opinion that the whole system ,of mortgages should, be revised so that at least fifty per cent, of the loan money should be returned before a transfer could take place. We agree with the Minister that some revision is advisable to check speculative manipulation of advances; but we are not prepared to show how the revision should be made. The subject bristles with difficulties, and the greatest of all is the difficulty of distinguishing, by rule or regulation, between the speculator and the home occupier. Advances are made on table mortgages running for terms up to 36£ years. Even to take a much shorter term, gay 25 years, conditions may arise (and do) which give good reasons for selling. The house may prove too small for a growing family, or too large for old people whose sons and daughters have left the home. There are many other circumstances which would warrant a transfer and make it unreasonable to impose conditions rendering such a transfer impossible or difficult. It must not be assumed, therefore, that every house advertised for sale carrying a Government mortgage is part of a process of speculation. - At the same time, it cannot bo denied that easy money, whether for farms or homes, encourages speculation. That is one of the great drawbacks of easy money. If the Minister can devise some means of removing this drawback, which operates as freely in the country as in the town, without at the same time lessening the benefits of the.Advances system, he will perform a notable service for housing and settlement. But it is necessary to walk warily or the last state may be worse than the first. The evils of which the Minister speaks are not new discoveries. What would be a new discovery would be a satisfactory means of removing them.