OPENING OF THE TENDERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5283, 13 June 1895, Page 1

OPENING OF THE TENDERS.

BUBBCBIBED FOUR TIMES OVEE. . Mat 3, 4.80 p.m.

Four o'clock. I have ]uat returned from the Batik of England, and being full of financial intoxication take leave to state that New Zealand ia the greatest colony on earth. Yea, air, I repeat, the Greatest Colony on Earth— (full-sized caps, if you please, MV Printer)-— and Sir Weatby Perceval and the Ron J. G. Ward are its greatest financiers. New Zealand is, of cour&o <fin&noially) rotten, to its core. Mr A. J. Wilson has said so, and he alone knows all about finance. Yet for this rotten colony the English capitalist has been pleased to subscribe £5,963,400 ! That was the sum total of the tenders opened in the .best parlour ol the " Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" to-day, between 2fi and 2.23 p.m., for the million and a half 3 per cent loan placed upon the market by your Treasurer. To quit joking. The loan waa a huge success— a greater success than either Mr Ward or the Agent-General anticipated, though well informed aa to the market movements. It was jußt on the stroke of two when I arrived at the bank, but I had been sitting at the Court-room table a good five minutea before the chief cashier, attended by Sir W. B. Perceval and your Treasurer, pub in an appearance, accompanied by a couple of clerks, with baskets fall of tenders. Next minuta the business began. A tender for £2000 at £93 13s 6d opened the ball, and then, in hurried succession, came a torrent of £10,000 and £5000 offers, at prices varying from £94 3s 6d to £95. The first big tender was one for £50,000 at £94 6s, and soon after one for £100.000 at £94 was opened, and anon another for the same amount at £94 10s. A £25 000, a £15,000 and some dozens of £10,000 to iders followed at from £94 3s to £94 10* and a second £100,000 at £95 6s brought a satisfied smile to the colony's repie sentativea' faces. Suddenly, amid a perfect rain of small fry, came a £600,000 tender at £94 Bs, and then another succession of ten, fifteen and twenty-five thousand pounders. Smalls again, and then in rapid order came tenders for £100,000 at £91 10s, £150,000 at £94 6a, £200,000 at £94 6s 6d, two fifty thousands *t £94 6s and £94 7s respectively, a £600,000 at £94 83 and £150,000 at £94 7e. After tbiß the tenders of £10,000 to £20,000 seemed " small beer," but they were " full-priced," so to speak, being at the rate of £94 10s to £95. Another big tender of £250,000 at £94 8a was followed by a succession of small fry at from £94 Is 6d to £96 10a ; and then came the whale of the batch — a syndicate tender for £1,100,000 at £94 Bs, followed by one of £50,000 at a similar rate. A few £10,000 offers at £94 6s brought out another big one — £420,000 at £94 83, which wau followed by one for £240,000 at the same rate ; one for £50,000 at £94 10a; one for £25,000 at £96; and one for. £50,000 at £94, 6?. Followed the sensation of the day, to wit a tender for £100 at par. We finished up with a run of medium offers, from £10,000'to £75,000. at low mices, £92 10a 6d to £93. Tub officiate quickly enabled the inxioue cable men to get off their messages, for at

2.30, we were informed, " subject to correction," that the total tenders amounted to £5,963,400, and that tenders at .£94 83 would get about 33 per cent only. Sir Westby Perceval informed me that he had anticipated an average of £94 2« Bfd only. Mr Ward said nothing, but looked entirely satisfied. There can be now no question of the city's view of New Zealand's financial stability surely !