MUNICIPAL ENTERPRISE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15257, 18 March 1910, Page 8

MUNICIPAL ENTERPRISE.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir.—lt seems to be accepted as » matter of course nowadays that municipalities may and ought to undertake for the public benefit such trading enterprises as may be deemed necessary. Already we have municipal tramways, crematoria and electrical supplies, and it is now seriously proposed that the conduct of funerals be undertaken also. All this appears to some of us to' be inevitable and in direct line of. our social evolution. I wish to make a suggestion as to one enterprise that m my opinion might be undertaken by the municipality with much advantage to the general’ public: I refer to land and estate agency. We hear much of the “land shark” and his 'wicked ways, and it must be patent to everyone that’ there are far too many agents of tins class in our midst. Not that I have a word to say against the “shark’ ; ho is only responding to a demand in the exercise of his calling. So long as w® have our present lack of organisation of our affairs, so Jong shall we have a host of if oil-producing parasites crowding one another in a struggle for margins. It isn’t the parasite ive must deal with, but the unscientific, disorderly conditions that make him provisionally necessary.

Now, what is to hinder us from putting this land and estate business upon a properly-organised footing by municipalising it? My thought- is, we might establish a bureau of information as to properties for sale and to let, and let' those having properties to dispose of enter such in the books of such bureau, while anyone seeking a property, either as lessor, purchaser, or weekly tenant, would go to it for information.Let a nominal commission rate be charged, sufficient- to- pay for the working of the bureau and provide a margin, and let the bureau issue, at convenient regular intervals, a printed list of properties on its register. Bureaux might exchange lists and otherwise facilitate property transactions. From such a scheme I should expect—(l) Tho elimination of the present system of parasite middlemen; (2) a fairer representation of facts concerning properties: (3) cheaper service; (4) fuller information, the various properties being all registered at one centre instead of being scattered over the registers of scores of agents; (5) fewer bogus or hasty transactions, no one being humbugged into hastily selling or buying, Rasing or renting. Perhaps someona better able to do it might discuss tha subject further, but. I know I speak for many when I say it is very generally recognised that the land and estata agency business is, as now carried or, cumbersome, chaotic and expensive.— I am, etc., R. F. WILLIAMS.