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Oamaru Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 4460, 29 August 1889, Page 2

It is generally conceded by the people of Cam am that were the large estates by which the town is surrounded cot up, a great revival of traie of all branches would result. We fear, however, that the prospeot of the subdivision of the land into suitable farms is still as far off as ever. It is well know that the Totara and Ardgowan | estates have been surveyed into farms of various sizes, and that a price haß been fixed for each lot; and it was accordingly understood that any person applying for one or more of the lots could become the purchaser on complying with the conditions of eale. This, it appears, is a mistake, as the following case, which has come under our notice will show. Soma two weeks ago a resident of Oamaru, desirous of trying his hand at farming, and being anxious to remain in the district, made an application to the Australian Land Company's manager for a certain section on the Totaia estate, offering, at the same time, the prioe of the land as set forth on the conditions issued by the Company. A reply was sent to the effect that the land could not be sold at the prioe stated, but that if the applioant chose to give L 3 per acre in excers of the amount stated in the Company's conditions of sale the sale could be arranced. This method of doing business is not generally recognised in those high commercial circles in which the Land Company move:, If the prices mentioned originally by the Company were afterwards deemed insufficient, in all fairness revised prices ought to have at once be9n issued. But the public know too muoh of the Company's manager to snppose that he would offer any of the property under his charge at less than its fullest value; and though we are not at liberty to mention the price announced as that at which the particular land now referred to by us could be acquired, we are entitled to Bay that the price was ample—some people would think more than ample. It certainly would pay the Company to sell the piok of Totara and Ardgowan at an average prioe under that whloh the Company's representative quoted, but afterwards refused to accept. It hss been asserted repeatedly that the cry for land 1b not genuine, But that cry is genuine enough, and it is the landowners who prevent the people from gratifying their dearest ambition. It is not to be supposed that people, however anxious for an allotment, would pay any prices demanded by the owners. People want land as an aid to the obtainment of a livelihood, not as a thing that they have to struggle to keep in their possession, and then, after years of misery, have to relinquish to the original owner. 7 here is one great lesson that the people seem to have taken to heart n that is that it is dangerous to purchsse land at speculative values. They have learned, too, that the actual valne of land is its value for cultivation, and that to give mora out of pure ambition to be one's own landlord is to court misery. It is better for a man to hang about the streets of our towns, or travel the country roads, picking up the few crumbs that he oan, than to burthen himself with land bought at such a price that he cannot make more than the interest on the purchase money by working It, We are too anxious to see the lands of this district settled in the truest senße of the term to attempt to unnecessarily dissuade land seekers to beware of extortion. Thiß district might have been made an agricultural paradise, If only laud were procurable at its aotual value, and what more than this do landowners want, and what more are they entitled to ? No man Is entitled to demand more than the real value of any commodity he has to sell, not even a landlord, and no man can make more by retaining his land than its maximum worth, thongh, like the Company, he may make a great deal less. What the object of the Company's manager can have been in adopting the polioy to which we take exoeptlon can only be conjectured. It Is certain that, whatever may be the desire of the Home shareholders, he is not anxious to sell, and that eo long as the shareholders are content to let matters remain as they are, they and Oamaru will not reap that mutual advantage that would spring from the receipt on the one band cf a fair market value for the land, and from the acquisition and cultivation, on the other hand, of good land that hid not been bought at an artificial price.