Boom Values.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 496, 7 August 1902, Page 3

Boom Values.

(To the Editor of the Times.) I Sin, —The thanks of all permanent residents in Gisborne are due to the Times for the stand it has made in opposition to the creation of a boom in the district, though all the olements are ripe for such a boom as has inado fortunes in other towns but brought ruin and wreckage in its train. In a goldfields town there must naturally bo spurts of prosperity and oppressing periods, but in an agricultural and pastoral district like this there is only one, and that a safe guide to the soundness and progress of the town and country, the prices of wool, meat, and dairy produce. There has been anything but an improvement in theso prices in recent years. But all the time prices of property are being steadily forced upwards, and rents have been so increased that landlords have in some I cases been asking double what they would have been glad to havo taken a few years ago. One can hardly blame them for this. We hear of residential properties changing hands at four times the price the owners would havo been glad to have sold for three years ago. Houses that have been built for nearly twenty years have been sold for larger sums than thoy originally cost to build. Can any one honestly say that all this is other than fictitious valuing '? Can a man earn a penny more to-day than he could four years ago V Is there a business that can make bigger profits ? Is there a local body that is not more heavily involved? It seems to me it is time serious questions were asked. The town

itself has none of the comforts of a city such as water, drainage, baths, and tramcars, but the rents asked aro higher in proportion than in any city.—l am, &c., Cautious.