THE ELLERSLIE LAND SYNDICATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9103, 11 July 1888, Page 3

THE ELLERSLIE LAND SYNDICATE.

TO THE EDITOR. ' Sir,As secretary of the Auckland Land Investment Company, as well as the Remuera Syndicate, perhaps you will allow me a few words in explanation of the proposal made by the parties interested to the Bank, the text .of which was published in your issue of yesterday. It seems the Bank demurred to allowing the £7800 due by the Remuera Syndicate to stand over while the £2800 due by the Land Investment Company was being paid off, notwithstanding it was well known that the original parties to the bond had been reduced from ten to four. While the Bank declined to entertain the proposals set out in the published proposed arrangement they did not suggest any alternative, or it is possible the gentlemen who have been forced into the Bankruptcy Court would have endeavoured to accede to any reasonable modification had it been within the compass of their power. It has always been considered that the Bank looked upon the security held for the £7800 as good, and therefore the four gentlemen who are now responsible for that sum deemed it a reasonable request that the payment thereof should stand over until the amount due by the . company , should be disposed of. In fact, to sum up, they offered all they could hope honestly to carry out. Already the actual loss out of pocket to these gentlemen on the two transactions amounts to £5400, and they were prepared to continue paying in such sums as their means would admit until the whole liability was cleared off. In reference to the departure' from the colony of one of the parties the offer submitted to the Bank made provision for any such contingencies, and, therefore, the action of the Bank can hardly be justified o:i those grounds. It is t-ue it would have required nearly four ynars to pay off the debt on the company's account, but while this was in progress interest would also have been paid, and the Bank would have eventually got its own with usury. The Remuera matter could then have been undertaken, and even if this had failed the Bank would have still held the security, which consists of some 43 acres of land at Remuera, and mortgages from parties who have bought lots amounting to £2186. Apologising for the length of this. —I am, &c., D. B. McDonald.