COMING LAND BOOM

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 167, 10 July 1888, Page 3

COMING LAND BOOM

A MILLION AND A HALF FOB NEW ZEALAND.

MELBOURNE SPECULATORS INTEND TO SCOOP THE POOL.

The Otago Times correspondent gives further particulars with regard to the project which has been occupying the attention of Melbourne capitalists. He says:—lt is pleasant to be the bearer of good news. The good people of New Zealand have been so long under the cloud of dullness and deCion, which has grown blacker and er year by year that perhaps they begin to doubt whether it has any silver lining. But they may at least begin to hope for the dawn of better times. Everybody knows that Melbourne has grown prosperous through the inpouring of British capital, which has sought investment chiefly in land. And I am glad to be able to convey the news that a speculation in New Zealand lands is about to set in. In fact there is an impression here that you are to have a boom in property. A syndicate of Melbourne capitalists is being formed for the purpose of investing the sum of one million and ahalf in your colony. The matter is thus referred to in the commercial columns of the Argus : — We believe that speculative attention is now being directed in Melbourne to New Zealand f ml propertv, which is so greatly depressed I that values outside the principal towns are * generally lower than they were 10 years ago. Bnch a depression can scarcely be expected to endure much longer in view of the splendid pastoral and agricultural advantages of New Zealand, as evidenced by the brief abstract of the exports from the colony which we gave on Tuesday morning. The average yield of wheat for the last harvest was 28J bushels to the acre, a figure which places New Zealand as second only to England in this respect. The immediate effect of an overflow of a million or a million and a-half sterling from the superabundant capita! of Melbourne to New Zealand would be a great advance in values, which would relieve financial institutions there from the embarrassment occasioned by the present serious look-up of their resources. I believe the Mercantile Finance, Trustees, and Ageny Company of thia oity has the project in hand. This company is one of the new creations, but it has the most successful financial history for its so far brief existence of any company the Australian colonies has ever seen. It was formed about two years ago out of the business of accountants and financial agents then carried on by Messrs Andrew Lyell and Co. Mr Lyell is now out or the concern, leaving Mr Howden, who was his partner, as manager. The shares are paid up to 255, and for the last two months their saleable value on the stock exchange has been from £9 to £lO. and to-day they are quoted at £9. It was just prior to the publication of the half-yearly balance sheet a week or so ago that they saw the highest price of over £lO 4s, the anticipation of the enormous profits to to be disclosed having caused some wild speculation. When the statement came out there was a fall, not in the figures, but simply from the natural reaction ; but the fall is now recovering. The figures are astounding. The paid-up capital is only £250,000, and the half-year’s total profit for distribution is £172,340. The shareholders receive a dividend of 80 per cent, with a bonus of 20, making a total of 50 per cent., £50.000 is added to the reserve fund, making it £150,000 ; a dividend reserve fund is created, to which £50,000 is placed ; whilst £25,000 is carried forward. The management during the coming half-year intend to issue a fresh 100,000 shares at a premium of no less than £6 5s each, and the proceeds, £625,000 will be added to the reserve fund. Original shareholders are thus in a delightful position, with shares on which they nave paid up 25s standing in the market at £9, and their company enriched by a stroke of the pen by £625,000. Quite recently the oldestablished business of C. and T. J. Ham, the famous land auctioneers, has been amalgamated with the company. This is the phenomenally successful company in connection with which the land investment in New Zealand is to be conducted. Mrß. J. Fink, who with Mr Dent M. L. A., has been indulging in such leviathan land transactions

the put 12 or 18 months, has been Selected chairman of the Mercantile ■ finance Company. In these letters from time to time details have been given of the character of the boom that has visited Melbourne ; and if this flow of capital into New Zealand creates but a tithe of the prosperity, the colony will at last truly have a chance of progressing by leaps and bounds. Money has grown on the trees here for the last 12 months ; at any rate it is no exaggeration to say that land has been paved with gold. In this morning’s Argus we read the following “ An indication of the increase of late in the value of property on the south side of the Yarra has been afforded in the recent sale of a piece of land in Haig street, South Melbourne, with a frontage of 09ft. Less 'than three years ago it was purchased for £l5 a foot, and it changed hands a few days ago at £ll5 a foot.” There is an impression here that Auckland will be the first to feel the good effects of the approaching boom in New Zealand, for it is considered that that northern city has the biggest future before it. New Zealand, it is considered, is the best field in Australasia for investment. The long depression has brought land down far below its real value; indeed it is known that even in the cities property is absolutely unsaleable. That a glorious future lies before the colony is certain. It has all the qualities that go to make a great country—climate, soil, minerals, and scenery. These things are recognised, and all that is wanted to send it forging ahead is capital. It is pretty certain that there will be additional sums forthcoming beyond the million and a-half now promised. Mr Bent and his fellow speculators appear to have bought up all the available blocks about Melbourne. They are turning their attention to country towns—Bacchus Marsh, Geelong, Lancefield, Colac. What there is to justify any expectation of a rise in property In such places is a mystery. In Melbourne the population increases at the rate of over 20,000 a year ; in the country towns it is decreasing rather than otherwise, for the set is

steadily towards tl.e metropolis. Yet arge blocks are changing hands every day in the cuuntry to vns mentioned at tremendously enhanced prices. New Zealand will afford a new and much more enticing field for the investor than the country districts of this colony. There is a most undoubted impression here that the turning point has at last been reached as regards the depression in your colony. You may expect a big crowd of tourists during the coming summer. So many people in this city have succeeded in making a few hundreds, to say nothing of a few thousands, during the boom that there will be scores who will indulge in a summer holiday. The beauties and delicious climate of New Zealand will be a strong attraction. It is to be hoped that the brighter times will have set in before the visitors arrive, for a trip to Dunedin, for instance, any time the last three years has been enough to give even a Melbournite the miserables.