OUR MELBOURNE LETTER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) April 22. THE NEW LOAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 13

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) April 22. THE NEW LOAN.

The floating of the £4,000,000 loan in London appears on the surface a successful operation, and no doubt ib has been so in reality. Still, when compared with the £3,000,000 loan last year the results are much loss satisfactory to the colony. For last year's loan (issued like this year's at 3£ per cent.) the average price obtained was £102 14s lOd ; for this year's it is only £100 2s sd. For last year's the net proceeds per £100 were £101 11s ll$d ; for this year's they are only £98 193 6|d. Relative to the question of Victorian borrowing, a somewhat interesting document has been republished here. This is a letter to the new London weekly (the Speaker) from its Melbourne correspondent, who is one of the Ministry. It is shrewdly guessed that this is Dr Pearson, the Minister of Education. Though, of course, in the main he defends the Treasurer, still he gives voice to some of the alarm which animates the public generally about our too rapid borrowing. I append a few quotations :— " The real charges, which the public understands better than it can state them, are that we are spending too much borrowed money, and that our balance sheets are presented year by year in such a way as to disguise the situation from all but a few business men, most of whom are interested iv keeping things smooth. . . . Meanwhile our disposition to use foreign capital has increased faster than either our population or our wealth. We borrowed £10,000,000 between 1870 and 1880; we took 20 more in the next eight years ; and there is every sign that we shall apply for 16 more in the next four— 1889-92. Indeed, as we took £3.000,000 in January, and have authorised £5,600,000 more, and are to make a bill for fresh railways the first business of next session, the chances are that we sliall commit ourselves to borrowing a great deal more than £16.000,000 witlin the period I have named, though we may not actually float the loaus. . . , The English investor will do well to consider the situation, for it is he who pours in the capital with which most of our public works are made, and out of which land booms are developed. . . . . If we had a long period of depression many of our railways would barely pay expenses and much of our State land would not be marketable. No one cau say that such a period may not come upon us You can understand why a few of us are rather uneasy at the situation, even as we see it by the waning light of a 'prosperity budget.' We should have been better pleased with a smaller surplus and less permanent debt." I think your readers will admit that Dr Peanon, if he is the ! correspondent, has given the English investor something to think about. It will not reassure him to know that "he pours in the capital out of which land booms are developed." What Mr Gillies will say to his colleague for writing in this strain and for saying also, as he elsewhere does, that "our banks subsist very much on State loans," one can only guess ; but ab any rate the correspondent of the London paper has hit the popular feeling when he says we should all have been better pleased with a smaller surplus and a less permanent debt. It is not improbable that Mr Gillies will ask the favour of a prej liminary revision of his colleague's future letters. MORE LAND BOOM REMINISCENCES. Runting and Wright's was one of the biggeßt of the land boom failures. They were the company promoting firm which secured Mr Larnach as a director, and you will remember that he spoke out vigorously agaiast their singular method of foisting properties from one set of shareholders to another at marvellous advances in price. The firm's affairs are still in the Insolvency Court, as they are unable to pay the necessary 7s in the pound to enable them to get a certificate. One of the firm makes an affidavit; about their land boom losses which is calculated to take the breath away. By reason (he says) of the inability of the trustee of their estate to realise their lands he was called upon by the unpaid vendors, or the greater portion of i them, to disclaim the contracts entered into by Runting and Wright for the purchases, and he did disclaim them. They had paid £113,122 8s 6d on such properties, the purcha^s of which the trustee disclaimed, and the whole of that money had therefore been lost. Here are some of the principal losses: — Crystal Brook Land Syndicate, 670 acres at Heidelberg, £4^31 loss ; 350 acres land at CampbelJfield, £19,855 loss ; Keilor, land (400 acres), £25,000 loss ; various I blocks of land at South Melbourne, £23.500 loss ; shares in various land syndicates, disclaimed to avoid calls, £20,020 loss. 1 Another revelation marie by the chairman of the Mercantile Permanent Building Society shows where the shoe is beginning to pinch after the mad building craze of 18 months ago. I told your readers in a recent letter that Melbourne was about to pass through an unpleasant experience in hard times, and that one contributing cause would be the inability of borrow rs from building societies to keep up their repayments. The societies, even some of the mote cautious, are beginning to feel this. The chairman of the society mentioned thus unburdened himself to his shareholders a few days ago : — " When money was at its tightest they had not apprehended that it would have the effect of oausing many who had built; with the view of selling to shirk their payments, and throw their properties bank upon the building society. But they soon found tbafc wit-h property after property, especially those built in terraces, fchfre was no eiforfc made at all to meet the payments. In one case whore th^y tried to recover the writ was returned null a bona It was only in the Brunswick dipf-.rict that they had suffered, So-etbing like 76 cottages and houses were handed over to them. He had very little doubt tbat the ful' value of the loan was in their hands, but there was not a margin upon them aa there should be. In Brunswick, with unmade,, streets, the rather long distance from towD, and a greater supply of cottages than could be' rented, the result was that when they tried to get B.s, other building societies would offer similar places at 53. He had no doubt that by holding they would ultimately get in tho aggregate not only the valuation but the interest to boot." MISCELLANEOUS. The Murray River question— that is the extraordinary claim set up by Sir Henry Parkes to

! complete ownership of the whole waters of the Murray— is being debated by correspondents in the public press. Professor Jenks, a youDg gentleman who has recently come from England to fill the professorship of law in the University, began it, with much show of deep research into old acts, by declaring that Sir Henry Parkes had not a leg to stand upon. But he has been put to utter confusion by Mr J. Dennistoun Wood, who was Attorney-g( neral in the early days, and who has recently returned from Eng* land. Mr Wood has been able to expose the professor's very superficial acquaintance with the subject in hand, much to the entertainment of the old identities. While Sir Henry Parkes exhibits his ill-feeling towards Victoria on the Murray question, the Sydney City Council shows its jealousy of Melbourne over a much smaller matter. Sydney has fitted up its Centennial Hall with a grand organ, and imported Mr Best, the famous English organist, to open the Bew instrument. But the organ will not be ready till July, anil meantime Melbourne wishes to hear Mr Best upon its Towfa Hall organ. The Sydney City Conncil, however, very distinctly say» "No." Mr Best is not to he allowed to soil his fingers ou any Melbourne organ. The youth Benoett, for the murder of his uncle at St. Kilda by treacherously shooting him as he entered a gate in the dark, has been found not guilty on the score of insanity. The boy was dull and slow-witted, bis father had been a dipsomaniac, and he himself had formed injurious habits; and the jury came to the conclusion that he did not know the full eff . ct of hia deed. A young woman named Esther Maria Steward has obtaiued a verdict of £1000 damages for breach of promise of marriage against John Duggan, at the West Maitland Circuit Court. Duggan, who was a labourer at Lake Maequarie, was suddenly raised from poverty to effluence by winning the first prize in the £50,000 sweep on the last Melbourne Cup. Solomon Joseph, the proprietor and editor of the Tamworth News, in New South Wales, has been charged with having published an article reflecting on the character of Mr E. M. G. Eddy, chief railway commissioner. The defendant had expressed his willingness to publish an ample apology in the leading newspapers of the colony, and this offer was accepted by Mr Eddy, who. however, insisted on going into the box and categorically denying all the statements made to the effect that he had given profitable offices in the Railway department to relatives and friends. The Queen's Bridge in Melbourne was opened by the Governor the other day. Jb is the channel of communication across the Yarra to South Melbourne, and takes the placo of the old Falls bridge. It is a very handsome bridge, of great width, and, like Princes Bridge higher up, carries the tramway line.