Daily Circulation, 1500. The Oamaru Mail. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1890.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XV, Issue 4688, 7 June 1890, Page 2

Daily Circulation, 1500. The Oamaru Mail. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1890.

The Auckland Herald, In discussing the Bank of flew Zealand question, refers with satisfaction to tha circumstance that Mr Brydone, who valued tha station properties in the globo account, is general manager of the Australian and New Zealand Land Company, is in no way connected with the Bank or its clieDts, or any of its circles, and is probably the beat expert in the colony. We do not know that onr contemporary's views on this matter are such as would be held by the Home shareholders if they knew precisely the position that Mr Brydone occupies in relation to land and land values, When Mr Brydone valued the Bank's properties he also indirectly valued those of the company of which he is the manager, though not of aourse for the purposes of the Property Tax, Property Tax values and selling value* are, as Mr Brydone knows, two very different things. The values, then,'which Mr Brydone put upon the Bank's properties were the values which he thought they ought to fetch if offered for Bale, and values in proportion to what he thinks the Company's land should realise. We need hardly remind the public that it is greatly to Mr Brydone's interest not to undervalue the Company's properties. If he were to do that, In all probability they would be sold, and the Australian and New Zealand Band Company would become a thing of the past. Mr Hean has expressed himself satisfied with the valuations of the Bank's properties made by Mr Brydone and others ; and has based his opinions of the value of the globo assets on these valuations. The question, however, Is not what Mr Brydone or any other valuer might think the properties should realise, but what they would realise if put into the market. There is but one test of this that oould be satisfactory, and that is the test of the auction room. The Bank wants to get rid of the incubus of its landed properties, and make its finances snug ; let the Directors apply the test. If the properties are worth what they say they are, why should they retain them in contradiction of the policy that they said they intended to pursue? So long as the Bank clings to these doubtful assets, so long will the public have a susplolon, rightly or wrongly, that they are being kept beoauae an attempt to sell them would expose a state of affairs worse than that which has already been exposed, As a matter of fact, if we are an honest community, the Property Tax values, with 10 per oent. added, would be reckoned the values for Belling purposes of the landed properties in the colony; or the values put upon them for purposes such as the Bank had in view when it instituted the valuation, with 10 per cent, deducted, should be the values on which the Property Tax would be levied.