THE GLOBE. MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1890, 15 March 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1880.

The lists o£ bankrupts that appear with cheerful regularity in the morning papers have become quite a feature of the times. Readers would feel surprised if at least three or four failures were not recorded, to be digested with the morning roll- It is true that for the most part the victims are numbered among the “ small fry,” but still there is, to an outsider, something startling in the number of insolvencies that are catalogued in such a small community as ours. The “ Hawke’s Bay Herald ” has examined the list of bankrupts who have failed in Napier during the last three years. The number of bankruptcies and assignments amounted to 150, and our contemporary estimates the toll thus levied by the credit system on the trade of Napier at £200,000, and it proceeds to preach a homily on this text as to the advantage of the credit system being reduced to more reasonable and safe proportions. We have not to hand the statistics on which this calculation is founded, but, judging from the state of trade in this and other districts, it is no doubt moderately correct. Taking into consideration the manner in which assets are overestimated, and the matter of legal expenses, it is very possible that, in three years, the sum of £200,000 has been lost to the Napier trading public. Let us look into our own affairs for an instant. In the Christchurch district, statistics show that in 1879 there were 454 insolvencies and forty-nine deeds, and the liabilities were placed for the year at no less a sum than £564,255. It is true that in opposition to this enormous sum that of £552,434 was given as the value of the assets, but anyone who has any experience in these matters knows what this means. Out of the smaller failures, where assets are received by tens of pounds, the hope of “gaining any dividend is invariably abandoned by the most sanguine. In larger failures, after legal expenses are paid and the estate realized, the amount that finds its wsy into the pockets of unsecured creditors may safely be laid down at not much more than a fourth of the official statement of assets. It may safely be said that of the £552,434 given as assets not more than £150,000 found its way to the unsecured creditors, and that the loss to the trading community has been, during the year 1879, something immense. This is not reckoning cases where private arrangement has been brought into play. This is a startling state of affairs for -a small community. “Over-speculation, the land mania, &c., &c.” says the reader with a shrug of the shoulders. Very true in part. But much must be laid to the door of that system at which the “ Hawke’s Bay Herald” has flung a dart. Anybody who is acquainted with the state of trade in the up-country districts above all must be aware of the ruinous extent to which this system is carried. It can only be hoped that the crisis through which the community is passing will have the effect of rectifying the loose state into which traders in general have fallen.