A CANADIAN BOOM.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 121, 27 June 1914, Page 8

A CANADIAN BOOM.

SPECULATION EXTRAORDINARY.

AMAZING PROGRESS OF BRITISH

COLUMBIA.

Specially written for TEE SUN. AVINNIPEG, June 15.

If ever in Ncav Zealand we had gone the pace set in Canada of late years we should most assuredly have fallen over tlio edge of our little country. Real estate booms on the scale of the British Columbian would have left our hardiest land agents amazed. Of course there had to be a slump; and there was, and is; but so vast is the country and so tremendous are the resources, that even the worst is not bad. Sheriff's sales have been; more are in prospect, but bankruptcies have scarcely risen above normal. •

Vancouver serves for a ready illus- | tration, for the boom has been mainly Western and British Columbian most of all. From its earliest infancy Vancouver boomed. It was born in 1886, and now, in its twenty-eighth year, has a population of over 200,000. In latter years the rate of increase has been 1000 a - month for the city alone, and 75,000 a year for the province. New Zealanders may doubt this, for a booklet issued by a New Zealand Shipping company and dated January, 1914, states the population at 130,000. But Vancouver did not doubt its prosperity. It had the great West behind it, and the great Pacific before. Behind were billions of feet of untouched timber —too vast to be estimated—mountains rich with minerals, level lands, waiting the settler, fruit farmer, dairy farmer, or wheat farmer. Before w 7 ere markets of untold capacity, in the east, ,to the south, or round Cape Horn to the west, and when, the Panama Canal project was certain of success Vancouver thotight its fortune was made. Now the word Panama falls on deaf ears. But once it had a magic sound. Mile of Houses a Month. Then it was that real estate dealings grew in volume, gradually SAvelling inthe course of some seven years till in 1912 dwelling houses (to say nothing of budding skyscrapers) were being erected at the rate of a solid mile a month. The painting of real estate sign-boards became a flourishing industry, for everybody was in the real estate business. To-day the visitor may take the electric car to the furthest limit Of Vancouver's 14 square miles arid see the signs of the boom. In the region of "corduroy" roads, blackened stumps or standing trees with, underscrub still thick, bear land agents' signs. Houses have been erected with the bush all .around, veiy desirable houses too, of tasteful design and elegant workmanship, but on small sections, rarely more than a 50ft. frontage, for the land was deemed too valuable for display—"even by the extravagant Canadian.

, Even Vancouver could'not last out this pace indefinitely. So everybody said. There was bound to be a slump some day, aiid the wise men of the West figured out that they would see it coming. Then they would sell before prices fell. That would have been all very well had the slump been properly stage-managed. It was not. It slunk in quietly before the agents gave the cue. Vancouver, slept peacefully one night, for Vancouver's citizens were satisfied that the land market "was brisk.- Vancouver wakened the next morning and discovered that all her citizens were in the real estate market as sellers. Of course such an unauthorised slump could net be accepted as genuine. The? holders of all the valuable sections said ''Things will be be'tter in thefall," but they were not: "Then they will be better in the spring," but they were not; nor in another fall; and another spring shows no improvement in real estate speculations. Such., a booin as Vancouver had was not kept . alive by buyers who bought for use. More than 90 per cent, bought to sell again. The buyers for settlement, oven ivith the city's annual increase of 12,000, were not more than 10 per cent. .When the slump came, most of the' settling buyers had been satisfied; what few liad not, decided to wait for a fall in prices. Thus it came about that the buyer said "It is nought, it is nought." j\nd lie was no Hebrew bargainer; he meant it. Slump—-20 Per Cent. Mortgages. ' Then was seen the strange spectacle of men wealthy .fact, and wanting money. Many citizens of solid standing were in the plight of-being worth thousands of dollars, ' eyeing with their holdings at a normal' vafuation, yet they had not sufficient "'to pay • their rates-—which, it may be mentioned, are on a single-tax system in Vancouver. The only course open to them was to -J clear their land so as to get the benefit of a lower bating for improvements, and this entailed some expense, for where the lumber is not of value clearing costs up to £so'an acre. Then having cleared their sections, if possible, they erected dwellings. They built them, painted them, papered theni, put the sign "For Sale" on them, and mortgaged them. With popularity mortgages became not luxuries, but" very expensive necessities. Bank rates rose to S per cent., a?id banks did not want real estate security. Still holders Were loth to sell at the. sacrifice which the financial stringency would have entailed. Mortgages they had to get, and have to get still, sa ! they are paving as much as 2 per cent, per month for them. This is a solid fact. It appeared fantastic to me till I investigated on all sides a 20 per cent, per annum mortgage, and found therein; not the least trace of fiction. The security was good —cit.v sections of undoubted value—but the owner was forced to obtain money somehow. Of course such a transaction has only two endings to a short road; an improvement in values, or the sheriff's notice-board. There are many such, and though the sheriff's board has not as yet been well filled, it is destined to be. At present values, in the minds of calm persons unaffected by the boom, are reasonable; but there was so much business done'On the boom market that it is still a far fall to soliditv.

Country Spiders—"Waiting For Flies. Meanwhile real -business has continued little affected delirium of the speculator—save- -that money is tight, and, as speculators are uot making .10,000 dollars in a week (as some did), they cannot spend it. But so vast are the resources of British Columbiavast as her majestic mountains, and to the stranger from a small land as incomprehensible, boundless and rich as

the prairies of the neighbouring Alberta—that there has been no industrial crisis. Lumber camps in the forests and lumber mills all over the province continue busy. The timber areas, seemingly inexhaustible (though a wise Government even now enforces conservation measures), were beyond the reach of the ordinary speculator. Not that the boom was confined to Vancouver, to British Columbia, or even to the West. In the Okanagan Valley, off the main line of railway, I saw rich farm lands. "Splendid," said a cleric beside me, "but we have very few farmers."

" But these lands are occupied." "Yes, our farmers don't farm, tliey wait for English suckers to come and buy."

"Not Much Good for the Province."

"No, the supply of suckers has been rather variable lately." A university man himself, but hardened by ten years' service in the North-West Mounted Police, he had' somewhat of a contempt for the innocent Englishman. Lower down the valley, in the rich fruit lands of the Okanagan, were most desirable fruit farms. '' Twenty-five thousand dollar propositions held by Englishmen," I was told, "trying to make it pay, but they paid too much." For fruit lands prices vary from £3O an acre with no trees, to over £IOO w 7 ith trees of the sixth year. Considering the distance of the market —one and ahalf days at least by rail —and the expenses of marketing these prices are —in American phrase —"some high." ■ In the farthest West "prairie town of Calgary, twenty years have seen the development of a Hudson's Bay Company trading post (the, log built post 'still' stands), to a city of 80,000 inhabitants. Most of the growth has been in the past eight years, but all around are the grain lands of Alberta, so the boom has solid foundations. ......... A Beneficent Check.;

And what of the future? Calgary's case is typical. Finding no.more fortunes in real estate the people are going to the waiting land, where a slower but more certain prosperity will be theirs. Dabbling in settlement lands' is an evil not unknown, but the West has so much to offer, and so rich, that the burden imposed by" the speculator, though uujust, is not prohibitive. Yan : eouver seems to suffer most. Her people have eaten sour grapes,, and now, with teeth set on edge, refuse sweet fruit. Panama has possibilities for the port, the grain of Alberta at least she should ship, her lumber should ■find new. markets, dairying and fruit farming should extend; but yet she stands in apathy. Her wharfage accommodation, for her railway and ocean, terminal position, is ridiculous. All along the coast from San Diego to Prince Rupert, preparations are being made for the canal trade.. Vancouver, with most to expect, does least. Beading of a project for 25 miles of dockage at the mouth of Fraser River —a project which has Dominion Government support—l sought information .of its progress. The most I obtained after some attempts was, "A bit of a dream; we've had too much of that." J. R. SMITH.