VALUE OF LAND IN NEW ZEALAND.

Evening Star, Issue 4943, 6 January 1879, Page 3

VALUE OF LAND IN NEW ZEALAND.

The 'Colonies/ a London paper of 2nd November, says :—" The disastrous failure of the City of Glasgow Bank has, through the connection between that Corporation and the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, brought into prominence the question of the value of land and property at the Antipodes. The subject is an important one ; and, though it iB difficult to give a general idea of the average value of land of different descriptions in a large and thinly-populated country like New Zealand, some accurate information on the point will be interesting. The immediate interest of the question turns on the point whether property for which a stated price has been paid would, if thrown on the market, realise its original or nominal value. Cases are known where agricultural land which was sold a dozen years ago a 10s an acre would now be eagerly bought up at from twenty to Bixty times that price, and even more. For part ef an estate of 14,000 acres near Oamaru, held by the company above referred to, a sum of L3O pet* acre has been offered, whereas the same lftj|ji would not have fetched L 5 an acre ten yearßago. A few months ago four acres ef "fojvn land" in Wellington were sold at LI,OOO (?) an acre which had cost less than LIOO per acre five years previously; and about the same time 500 acres of rough hilly land in the vicinity of Wellington changed hands at LIO,OOO, or L2O per acre. When we read in the accounts of colonial sales of land in a ' swampy valley' fetching L 4 5s per acre, of sections of a quarter of an acre each in country townships realising L 45 each, the value of good land in eligible situations in New Zealand as a sound security can hardly be over-entimated at LlO per acre all round.

Domestic Peace.—Would you know the secret of domestic peace and tranquillity, the charm which can harmonise the most dissimilar natures or the most conflicting prejudices; when they are gathered under one roof ? It may be summed up in two words—"Avoid argument." To argue is seldom to convince, but it is often to excite. Besides, the defeat of an argument leads to a lobs of temper, and sometimes the victor and the vanquished are equal sufferers in the end. And how few things are worth argument after all! About Losing Heart.—The most perilous hour of a person's life ia when he is tempted to despond. The man who loses his courage loses ail; there is no more hope of him than of a dead man. But it matters not how poor lie may be, how much pushed by oircumStances, how much deserted by friends, how much lost to the world —if he only keeps his courage, holds up his head, works on with his hands, and with unconquerable will determines to be and to do what becomes a man, all will be well. Jt is nothing outside of him that kills ; it is what is within that makes or unmakes.