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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3876, 19 December 1883, Page 2

Tin-: Hawera Star reports the following curious case :—" The case of Balncavis and the decision of the District Court, in reference thereto, give one more instance of the facility with which swindles may be perpetrated under the deferred-payment clauses of the Land Act. Coming into the district with less than £.50 this man Balnea vis managed to get a deferred-payment section, and then posing as a 'land-owner,' he obtained credit from the various stores, enabling him to improve his property, to build upon it, and to render it fit for residence. Ho obtained goods to the amount of £'200, and his property became worth £300. On his creditors desiring payment, he simply snapped his fingers in thoir faces, fikd his schedule, and with tho audacity of a highwayman laughed at them as, in effect, he robbed them. Ho was offered, if ho would give up this valuable property, a J- acre section and a house, and £50 or £100 in cash. We comment strongly on this case, not because it is the only one that lias occurred, but because it illustrates tho facilities for dishonesty more glaringly than any that have come under our notice." Under the Land Act, 1877, it is provided that " the interest in land on deferred payments of a selector who has not fulfilled all the conditions of his license shall not, during the currency of such licence, be assignable at law or in equity except under the provisions of this Act, and shall not be capable of being charged, inoumbcred, extended, or taken in execution in any manner whatever." This clause was inserted to protect a poor struggling farmer in the event of a bad season or other misfortune over which he might have no control. It was never contemplated for a moment that it wculd be the means whereby a dishonest man might defraud his creditors. Under the now Bankruptcy Act men of the Balnoavis stamp will find that they can bo punished .severely for fraudulently obtaining- credit.