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Timaru Herald, Volume IV, Issue 94, 2 March 1866, Page 3

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMARU HERALD. Sir — One of your correspondents (Mr. A. Wilson) m sec-king- to justify his support of Mr. Moorliouse, finds fault with that part of my land scheme under which provision would be made for compensatingexisting; runholders. But the compensation which I propose to g-ive has no element of uncertainty m it. It is a fixed rate, of say £S per cent, on the amount of money realised by the sale of the rims, and my reason for sug-g-esting- it is that a large number of the runs have been mort-g-aged to the loan societies and to private persons, and have otherwise chang-ed I hands, under the impression that the present price of the land would not be altered. It is to compensate for the loss which might thus be inflicted, that I proposed the compensation m question, and I will proceed to shew that, even Avith this compensation, my proposal possesses enormous advantages over any that have yet been made by any of our politicians. In a letter which I addressed to the Lyttelton Times on the 21st instant, I pointed out that the Province is committed to certain great public works, m part by contract, and m part by necessity. I stated " that I conceived tliat the followingworks could not be dispensed with, without checking:, m a material degree, the advancement of the Province — " 1. The completion of the tunnel works, and the erection of the necessary stations, &c. " '2. The completion of the projected harbour works at Lyttelton. "3. The completion of the line of railway to the Rakaia. "4. The erection of bridg-es across the Rnkaia and Rangitara. "•>. The construction of proper harbour works at Timaru." And I added " that we could not be satisfied without carrying- on the line of j railway from the llakaia to Timaru, and I without a line from Christchurch to the Kowai, with branch lines of horse railway from the upper parts of the plains for the purpose of feeding; the traffic on the main line.

In order to carry out these works within the next fiA'o or six years, and provide for our ordinary requirements as well, Aye shall require, m addition to the whole of the ordinary land revenue, a special revenue of at least £200,000 per annum, or m round numbers from £1,000,000 to £1,200,000, and the question is, A\-here is it to come from ?

Let us consider the matter first under the aspect of a loan, assuming- £1,000,000 as the sum required. It will hardly be contended that we can borrow at par, and I assume that our debentures would not bo floated higher than £00. We should then be required to issue debentures to the amount of nearly £1,110,000, wliich at 6 per cent, interest and £3 per cent, sinking fund, would create a charge of £88,880 per annum, for at least twenty-four years. Now the whole rent of the pastoral lands for the next fourteen years will be as follows: — From Ma}', 18GC, to May, 1873, £30,000 per annum; from May, 1873, to May; 1880, £40,000 per annum. After May, 1880, the rents may be raised, but, as I propose to show, m the meantime the pastoral land, forming- the hill and mountain runs particularly, may be so dealt with as to make it almost valueless to the public. At all events for the first seven years we should have a deficit of £58,000 a year, and for the second seven years of £48,000 a year, all of which, besides the cost of surveys, of immigration, and of all ordinary public works, must be provided for out of land sales, and must almost all come out of the 2>ocl:efs of the working agriculturists. And during all this time the runholders will continue to enjoy an opportunity of making- large fortunes out of the waste lands, which they hold at a rate a little over a penny an acre rent ! Besides all this, the whole of the interest money will be paid to capitalists abroad. Now, under my scheme, we might confidently look forward to selling £200,000 worth of pastoral land m each year, for the next five or six years, at £1 per acre. I am perfectly satisfied that we possess from a million to a million and a-half of acres of pastoral land, outside of my proposed agricultural block, worth £1 an acre, and there would be no difficulty m inducing- capitalists to invest m it for sheep iarming purposes. And let us see what the financial result would be, as compared with borrowing. Let us assume that 1,100,000 acres would be sold at £1. After deducting £10 per cent, compensation to the runholders, this would yield £990,000. We should lose the rent of the land, which would amount to about £6,500 a year, thus reducing the pastoral rent for the first seven years to £24,500, and for the next seven years to £34,500 a year. We should also apparently lose £1,100,000, being- the difference between the present price and my proposed price of £1 per acre. I say "apparently," because I do not consider the land will for generations to come be worth £2 an acre.

But instead of Laving to pay £88,880 a year interest money to capitalists out of the country, we should have the whole of our land revenue at our disposal for public works, emigration, <tc. It is said that my scheme is a scheme for killing 1 the golden g-oose, but the suggestion is too absurd to require any attempt on my part to refute it. The golden goose is, however, being already very effectually killed by two processes now going on all over the country, namely, the pre-emptive rig-lit arrangement, and spotting-. Under the first, the whole of the agricultural country is becoming intersected with lines, which offer a complete bar to the purchase of land, and under the latter, the hill runholders are so girdling their runs as to render very large tracts utterly inaccessible, and utterly useless to any one but themselves. I recommend the people of the Province to look to all this, or they will find their estate slipping through their fingers to much greater disadvantage than any involved m my proposal. I am, &c, W. T. L. Travers. Christchurch, Feb. 24, ISCG. P.S. — I extract the following' "scheme" (save the mark) ot Mr. Moorhouse's for I relieving the Province from its difficulties, from the report of one of his speeches at Lyttelton. Surely it is impossible to conceive anything more utterly childish, and unworthy of a man who presumes to call himself a politician. " He (Mr. Moorhouse) felt a great contempt for any plan that would impair the public credit. It Avas a fallacy to suppose that the sale of land at £1 per acre would benefit small holders. The monej- obtained from them would be very little, and j ultimately that land might Oo worth £2, but it should not be squandered away. 'It would be far better to borrow 20 per cent, on the full value of £2. The land societies m England would never have selected Canterbury as the principal scat of their operations, had they not considered this Province as essentially conservative. There was not sufficient capital m the Province to carry on business satisfactorily, and most of the squatters were owing large sums to their merchants, and measures should therefore be taken to introduce more capital, and thereby facilitate and give an impetus to trade. That could best be done by exports of produce, and negotiations of loans. But for the loan societies, most of the squatters would have I been m the (jiazette. The nay to eneoii- | rage confidence wan to grant long leases, and he considered that fourteen years leases for runs were far preferable to seven years. Long leases encouraged the farmer to import capital to improve his land, and gave confidence to the lender. Sujjposing one hundred squatters were to borrow £10,000 each on their leaseholds, that would produce one million sterling, which would be distributed throughout the country, and a great proportion of that money would eventually find its way into the coffers of the state. This, m conjunction with other sources of profit, would restore confidence, produce prosperity, and by-and-by the borrowers would be enabled to return the capital lent to them. This would be accomplished without sacrificing public lands, but ivere Mr. Travers scheme adopted, it would be impossible to borrow money. They could not at present sell one million's worth of shingly land, but they could borrow on it.