The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1886.

Otago Witness, Issue 1795, 17 April 1886, Page 17

The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1886.

While a certain movement has been going on in New Zealand to obtain a reduction in the rate of interest on mortgage of real property by means of State loans, State banks, &c, &c, it seems likely that natural causes will before long reduce the price of money here. We observe in some of the financial papers in London that the • life assurance companies, who have more than 83 millions of money invested in or on real estate, are taking alarm at the "course of Irish legislation and the utterances of responsible statesmen," and are speaking of Colonial investments as the future outlets of their capital. The fall in the value of real property in England has been very great, more especially in and near London itpolt ; and especial reference is made in the paper we are referring to to the subversion of social order caused by tho Socialist riols* i» London. It is quite clear that if the large companies are beginning to regard real property with suspicion in view of impending land legislation in Great Britain, and are likely to follow the example of the "Scott ish Widows Company and send large sums to the Colonies, that our time has come, we shall not require any hair-brained schemes of State-banking if English capital flows m copious streams upon our shores. Ihe fi and even U per cent, which our yaendo statesmen dream of attaining through the agency of the State will be the market price of money when the impending mil. Uamium has become ft reality. Ihere is only one real diftioulty lv the way; English tenders will value estates after a very different fashion to that whinh used to obtain, and which still in some measure does obtain here. They will not lend twothirds of even such chastened yahie as they

will put on Colonial real-property securities It cannot be concealed, though it will readily be denied, that what the propounded of a State loan to struggling farmers really contemplate is the putting off all the bul things to the back vt the Government. This is tho naked truth which renders t lie proposal so popular with impecunious men and so detestable in the eyes of sound economists. It is not only cheap money—that we are certain lo get, and, indeed, have already got ; it is pliable and clocilu lenders who will yield to political pressure and drop the glittering gold into the lap of Ih^se who hare political influence albeit they hau; no capital. This is the real goal of the State'oaak- printing -press-Ci</«-loau-to-striig»lint;-33ttler patriot. While wo have reason to QDpe that tliCbC socialistic projects have not the least chance of succeeding, we are hopeful that the movement of English capital towards these shores will not be stopped by the wild utterances of any of our responsible statesmen, either on the subject of the land or the sovereign