SLUMP IN WINNIPEG.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1870, 2 October 1913, Page 5

SLUMP IN WINNIPEG.

END OF THE LAND BOOM,

TOLD BY WELLINGTON MAN. Tho natural course of a boom is to bust. That is what appears to havo happened in the boomiest of Canadian inland cities, Winnipeg, which has grown from a track station to a handsome, hustling city, within twenty years or so. Mr. P. H. D.Davidson, of Wellington, who has just returned from Canada, was in Winnipeg only a few weeks ago, right after the big slump in land values, and he describes the place as dead. Ho did not stay thero very long—the atmosphere of the place was too depressing. Money was tight, and everyone being moro or less affected by tho sudden change that had come over tho city, .were not inclined to throw their arms round a stranger.

The cause of tho slump (said Mr. Davidson) was just tlio samo as it has been in a hundred other"places that mould be meixtfioned—forcing up tho price of land to fictitious values, with many paper and few casll transactions. In Winnipeg there were streets of land agents dealing in options. .They, pay the owner of a small sum down for the option to purchase his property at a certain sum in a certain time. Ho has 110 idea of buying' himself, but hawkes tho property round at a price that will show him a return. The buyer secures the property (which is usually mortgaged), and tries to sell at a profit by giving an agent an option. On each occasion there is a rise in price, until the value placed oni a property becomes ridiculously high. Then somebody demands cash in stead of paper, the'banks.call np overdrafts, and down falls tho houss of cards. ' 1

Wintiineg, continued Mr. Davidson, has suffered more than any place in Canada. Before the slnmr), land within two miles of the centre of the .city ivas selling as higli as 200 dollars (roughly, £40) ner foot—about the price that was paid for tho whole allotment a few years ago. The figure was high people knew, but they never imagined that such a. centre, set in the middle of such a vast wheat-growing country, could get such a set-back. A contributing cause may have, boon the demand for gold owing to the European wars. Perhaps another was the rising importance of Port Arthur (on the Canadian-Pacific railway, not far from Winnipeg, and situated on the shores of Lake Superior). . Ten years asro Port 'Arthur had a population of 2000 neople—to-day it has 20,000. For ten aniles up the river from the port there' is ono continuous lino of wheat elevators, and they arc flUikng th" river navigable for another ten miles, to extend the place as n wheat" centre. Port Arthur now handles more wheat thnn Chicago,' nv\d. is one of the coming lake centres of Canada.

1 Whilst in Canada Mr. Davidson staved at. Banff House, in the Rockies, also at the Chateau Louis at Logon, a very fine mountain resort that is reminiscent somewhat of Queenstown.