VICTORIA'S DANGER.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1255, 27 March 1878, Page 3

VICTORIA'S DANGER.

The peril occasioned by the proceedings of the Victorian Government to a large body of settlers in that colony is thus expbdn-dby the "Argus":—"From a return which has been furnished to us, we learn that during the last ten months of 1577 the Banks lent no less than £BOO,COO to the free selectors of the colony, chidly on the security of the'.r leases From this it can he easily understood what, a dangerous course it was to do anything calculated to interfere with the relations between the Banks and this particular section of their customers, and the possibility of a serious crisis among the settlers can be just, as l-eadily imagined. Irrespective of 'Mr Lorgmore's direct interference to damage the value of leases as securities, the actions of the Government have brought the colony to such a condition that the best freehold security is regarded with suspicion, so that the unfortunate selectors are practically out of the money market as customers. Hundreds, we may safely say thousands of them, cannot carry on without; credit, and financial assistance, and [as this is almost stopped, it is but reasonable to anticipate a crash. Should it come, the sufferers will he able to appreciate the actions of a Government which interposed its pernicious policy between them and business men who had previously evinced willingness to assist the agricultural class up to the extent of nearly one million sterling per annum, and that on what must be regarded as an outside ocurifv."