BANKRUPTCY.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 1027, 21 October 1903, Page 1

BANKRUPTCY.

ESTATE OF GEORGE GOLDS WORTHY.

The statement in the bankrupt estate o‘ George Goldsworthy, second-hand dealer’ has been filed with the Deputy Official Assignee (Mr J. Coleman). The liabilities are stated to be debts owing to unsecured creditors amounting to .£6Ol 14s 6d. Assets are set down as follow :—Stock-in-trade, Gisborne, estimated at £l5O 15s lOd ; book debts £BB 9s sd, estimated to produce £BO, sign boards, lamps, and shop fittings, tents £2O, furniture £27, stock seized by Mr Smith under his bill of sale, unregistered, estimated at £2OO, say £2OO ; total £478 6s lOd. Deficiency, £123 7s Bd.

The unsecured creditors are :—W. J. Cox £33, Sargood and Co. £2l 10s 9d, J. L. Holland and Son £l2 2s, H. E. Partridge £l2 16s 4d, P. Hayman and Co. £35 13s 2d, Jones and Gaudin £ll 8s 2d, Wm. Smith £250, W. J. Hamon £lO 10s, Hamon and Smith £4O, T. and J. Dalrymple 12s 3d, J. Townley £1 10s 6d, Mackrell and Colley £lO 5s Bd, F. Stafford £3, Morrison Bros. £1 6s 2d, Gas Company £1 Is, Frederick Hall £44 3s Bd, J. Craig £l3 16s Bd, Adair Bros, £l6 15s Bd, Dr Fisher £6, J. Mawhinnoy £2, J. Jeune £1 11s, Ferris and Co. £2 Bs, J, Rosie £1 13s 6d, Kempthorne, Prosser and Co. £53 18s 7d, Schaffer and Co. £l4 13s 3d. Debtor stated :—I started business in June, 1902, with a capital of something under £SO worth of stock, and about £6 in cash. Since then I bought aud actually paid for in cash £947 worth of goods. That is to say, I bought them by turning the stock over to fair profit. Up to a certain time 1 did well, and my businesss increased. After the ond of lust year my business fell off somewhat, and I did not do so woll, my exponses being very heavy —namely, 80s rent, 103 wages, together with heavy interest on borrowed money, about 30s, and other expenses, including the maintenance of myself and family. I thought that I might do better in tbo business if I could introduce further capital, and with that end in view I borrowed more money from Messrs Hamon and Smith up to £290, including what 1 then owed to them, at a high rate of interest, whioh, however, I was in hopes would be recouped from the extra business I hoped to do. The best part of the season was then done, and during the winter my business was very dull, and did not oome up to expectations. The bill of sale to Mr Smith was not registered, and it was stipulated that I should not give auy promissory notes, and that if I did so the grantees of the bill of sale would foreclose. I broke this agreement unavoidably, and Mr Smith seized under the bill of sale about £2OO worth of my stock, and in order to protect my other creditors I had no option but to file. If I had been allowed to carry on a little longer 1 believe I would have been able to pay in full as the best of the season is just coming on.

To borrow at 5 per cent, and lend at 3£ and 4 per cent, is not good business, even for a Liberal Government. So thinks the Hawke’s Bay Herald, whioh, in a leading article on the Loan Bill, remarks ;—" In the course of the next few years, as we recently pointed out, several loans fall in, and the Government will have to find thß money to redeem them. It looks as if they were going to have some difficulty, or at all events, as if it was going to cost the colony a pretty penny. What will bocome of the policy of the Government in limiting the profits of the railways to 3 per cent, or charging tenants under the Land«for Settlements Act interest at something under 4 per cent. It is always a mistake to out the margin of profit too fine. We have always maintained that our Government have done so, and if the rate of interest goes up we shall before long find that it will be necessary to reconsider the financial basis of the present administration.”

The amount of the loan, in our opinion, should be cut down to half-a million, if not Jess. The high rate of interest will suit capitalists who have money to lend, but it will assuredly not be to the benefit of the colony as a .whole. The policy of the Government seems to have undergone a radical change. They no longer prate, about their success in bringing about cheap money. All their efforts now seem to be directed towards dear money as the ultimate goal, and they will find it is much easier to achieve this result than to reduce the current rate of interest in the market of the world.—Christchurch Press,

“ It is simply monstrous that in the circumstances indicated allocations should be made in the Bill for such unnecessary works as the Kawakawa, Gisborne-Karaka, Egmont branch, Catlins-Seaward Bush, Riversdale. Orepuki, and other political railways enumerated. The colony certainly cannot afford to pay 5 per cent, interest on such gross political jobs as these,” remarks the Christchurch Press in a leading article on the Loan Bill. Thus the Wairarapa Times on New Zealand’s patriotism:—We cannot forget that it was under the Liberal Administration, that professed a horror of militarism, that the war fevor raged more than anywhere else in the Empire ; and that the crime was committed (we can call it no other than a crime) of sending away a wildly disproportionate number of young men in ton (mark the ten 1) contingents—the effect being to throw back upon the community a horde of demoralised men who might have been useful citizens if they had not been allured and urged to go soldiering—and all this to swell the reputation of the Head of the Great Liberal Government, whose heart bled so profusoly for the workers ’ In addition to the War Office oars ' a nd the now Motor Volunteer Corps, a new automobile is oa trial for army work, and it promises very well, as it will not only be handy, but compact and. eomplsfce. The car is built to carry a thousand rounds of ammunition, together with four riflemen and, four rifles, in addition to their rations for four days and sufficient petrol for a two-hundred mile run. It will also carry two waterproof tents, blankets, entrenching shovels, and other minor military appliances. It will, in fact, if adopted, be a miniature motor blockhouse 1

A Parliamentary return, published in connection with the preferential trade agitation, shows that in the last 20 years the exports of woollen and worsted goods, ootton goods and cutlery and hardware declined to the extent of £8,071,875. The cutlery and hardware exports dropped from £2,508,556 in ISB2 to £953,695 in 1902, under the pressure mainly of German competition. Last year’s decrease in the area of cropped land amounted to 44,475 acres, while the area of “ permanent grass ” incressed by 127,588 acres. The lost “ fisherman’s ring ” of the late Pope is said to have been found in his writing-table*