STATE OF THE LONDON MONEY MARKET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7270, 7 March 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

STATE OF THE LONDON MONEY MARKET.

[FROM OUB LONDON CORRESPONDED. ] London, January 16. It would be stale news to tell you of the great success of the New Zealand million loan. It is a singular phase of public sentiment when we find the affair hardly commented on. at home. I mean by that com' mented on in the terms in which the borrowing proclivities of the colonies in general and New Zealand in particular used to be discussed. Now and then we hear a whine from somebody about colonial extravagance, but the philippics of other days have passed, and though the colonies go on borrowing and still borrowing with a velocity that is _ ever increasing, they seem to have outstripped criticism. There is no doubt that the prominence and favour enjoyed by the colonies through recent events have tended to bring them and their resources more within the mental grasp of investors, and the last loan has been taken up almost exclusively by private investors; but a good deal of the attention that has been given to colonial investments arises from another cause, and that is the change that has come over the character and value of landed investments at home within the last few years. In fact land is fast becoming a discredited commodity, and a vast amount of surplus capital that used to gravitate towards land is now set free and is in quest of opportunity of being invested. England's adversity—if the change that is coming over her landed interests can be called adversity—is the colonies' opportunity; at all events there has never been a time when English capital was more susceptible to the voice of the colonial charmer. Even more significant is the success of the small loan of £25,000 of the city of Auckland. The smallnesa of the sum would only a few years ago have been almost a fatal barrier to success ; now, so changed are the relations of'the colonies with home, so accurate the knowledge of colonial securities, that it is subscribed nearly fivefold. The total amount subscribed for the Auckland city loan of £25,000 has been £117,200, there being fiftythree tenders in all, the minimum being £107. Of these tenders those from £109 to £110 Is received allotment in full, while those at £108 17s 6d received to one-sixth of the amount applied for. In other words £4000 were sold at £108 17s 6d ; £20,000 at £109 Is to £109 11s; and one lot of £1000 at £110 Is.