The Poverty Bay Hevald AND East Ooast News Letter. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER?, 1880.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1115, 7 September 1880, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Hevald AND East Ooast News Letter.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER?, 1880.

PUBLISHED EVERY EYENINI

With a very few words to say, we tbink, after- .what- was told us at last night's meeting, that . Mr. Rf.es may well be left to, work r out his scheme in his own way, if, such, a way be possible. If Mr, Rees succeeds be is the -very.- Prince of financiers. He buys a large area of 'fond- with nothing but the- land itself to pay the purchase money, . Not only is the IttoS to 36 this, Tsut it w to find funds for building bridges, making roads, laying off a township, effecting drain/ age, together with a number of other good things to come to pass. We may explain Mr. Rees' scheme by an illustration to show its feasibility. A man with no money goes to a merchant and purchases goods to the value, we will say, of one thousand pounds. This done, the merchant asks how it is proposed the goods shall be paid for. " Oh," says the man, " I will sell your back as many of the best goods I have bought as will pay you for one-half of them, and I will pawn the remaining naif to you to make good the balance. Now, we ask any of our readers in possession of common sense, what they think the answer of the merchant would be to such a proposal for effecting a trade transaction. This, then, is Mr. Rees' scheme. He buys land, and sells a portion of it back again in the shape of a mortgage to enable him to pay the remainder. This sort of thing in another way we know is occasionally done, sometimes perhaps with success, but in nine cases out often ending in failure. A trader has got a bill coming due for a ton of flour. He does not" find himself in sufficient funds^- to meet the bill which is maturing," and so he goes to some other merchant and buys a ton of sugar on credit. This sugar he sells, and so meets his bill for the ton of flour. And unless he can buy something else to meet the payment for his sugar, and so on ad infinitum his financial scheme breaks down utterly.

Mr. Rees' idea of financing in land contains something that is truly ludicrous. It reminds us of an old Joe Miller which most people have road and laughed at. A. man goes into a store, and buys sixpenseworth of bread and sixpenseworth of tea. Being served, he hands back the tea, and says he will keep the bread, which he is carrying away, when the shopkeeper stops and says, be has not paid for the bread. ITo, says the buyei', but I gave you the tea for it. But answers the shopkeeper you did not pay for the tea. . Of course not, replies the buyer, because you've got the tea. Really this is not much more absurd than Mr. Rees' scheme for buying land.

However, if Mr. Rees can succeed by his method of finance, we shall set him down as being able to accomplish very great things indeed, and shall ; hail him as a great blessing to vs — quite as another Sir Julius. Yogel in another line of business; Sir Julius when he was plain Mr. Yogel, was '■yrdifti' ->td'. sa,y that- "»ny man could finance if he had money, but he claimed for himself the merit of being

able to finance without requiring money to help him to a succoss. This kind of finance was some time back humoursly illustrated in one of Punch's clever sketches. A ragged little girl goes into a cheesemonger's shop, and says, " Please, Mr. Firkins, mother says will you give her change for sixpence, and she will pay you the sixpence next week.', But Mr. Firkins looks as if he could'nt or would 'nt see it.

We have no wish to frustrate Mr. Rees' plans. We would heartilly give him our support were it not that we do not care to have fun poked at us. We believe that Mr. Rees is honestly sincere in thinking that his scheme will work, and have never once doubted his bona fides. The idea has doubtless come to him as in a vision, but as the realities and the main difficulties come to stand in the way as the undertaking progresses, the fabric of the vision will fade, and Mr. Rees will find himself standing face to face with things insurmountable. One of Mr. Rees' several great mistakes is, that he appears utterly at sea when he comes to estimate the value of land ; and Mr. Kentish McLean appears to be little better. Both he and Mr. Rees seem to think that because a block of land, containing some three hundred acres, is laid down as a township on a sheet of drawing paper, — the laud being cut up into several hundred small allotments — that the value becomes enhanced a thousand-fold. Why, if such a scheme were realizable, we should have every. holder of a block of land doing the same thing. What can lead Mr. McLean to think that three hundred acres of the Whataupoko Block will realise fifteen, ten, or even five thousand pounds \ What, for instance, has been done with the Government township at Patutahi 1 The sections brought enormous prices, and these are now with sheep feeding O7i them, and not two of the sections built on. " Once bit, twice shy." Paper townships have ceased to be either a novelty or an attraction for speculators. Still we wish Mr. Rees all the success his most sanguine expectations can desire or look for. He is laboring under a self-delusion, which we have no wish to disturb, that others may be affected and ultimately suffer from it.