“ON MIAMI’S SHORE.”

Hokitika Guardian, 5 November 1925, Page 4

“ON MIAMI’S SHORE.”

FLORIDA’S AMAZING LAND BOOM. AA'ithin the past six months Miami, until recently an unimportant little sen coast resort of South-Eastern Florida. has suddenly become the centre of one of the most remarkable land booms in all history (relates T. H. AVeigall in the "Daily Mail”). Tile popularity of Miami as a, millionaires’ liolday resort has given rise to wild optimism about the future of the place as a residential, farming, and industrial area; and unscrupulous estate agents and “Hat catchers” are feverishly engaged in selling not only land along the sea-front but swamps in the far interior.

Miami has seen, and is still seeing, more fantastic fortunes made in a night than over came out of the Alaskan goldfields or the oil wells of Yellowstone Dark. There is no gold in Florida, nor any oil worth mentioning ; there is nothing. Indeed, beyond a fertile soil and a delightful climate. Yet land in Miami—where only twentylive years ago sixteen square miles had been bought for £2oo is now sell- ' ing at a fabulous price per square foot. I Get-rioh-quiok salesmen are exploiting on a. gigantic scale the curious fact Hint in America there are millions win will Inly anything provided it he only ! advertised enough. I When or how it will end no one can j say. Everything in Florida to-day is | so utterly artificial, so obscured by the flamboyant advertising of syndi- j cates and company promoters that it i is impossible to judge calmly what may j he the real meaning of the whole J amazing situation. The probabilities j would seem to me that even il Miami , itself is not heading for a collapse ; the surrounding territories which have I taken advantage of the boom are eel'- | l.ainhj doing so, and will as certainly carry wiili them into their swamps and deserts the millions of dollars thill have been speculated on their “desirable home and industrial sites.’ To the student of human nature .Miami to-day is one of the most extraordinary spectacles in the world. It is u mixture ol A eniec and Bedlam, with Bedlam strongly predominating, 11 at loss, coatless men—-nobody wears coats in Miami rush about the blazing streets, their arms full of papers, perspiration pouring from them as they strain to buy or sell some “speciality” that lias just come their way. Everywhere there is dust ; a, thousand automatic riveters pour out their deafening music, a thousand drills and hammers and winches add to the clients. Everybody Js reiil-eslute m:id. Towering office-buildings, almost entirely occupied hv ‘'realtors, ’ are the scenes of indescribable enthusiasm and confusion. Everywhere there is handshaking, back-slapping, and general “boosting.” Three-quarters of the speculators in Miami know nothing whatever about business, hut have poured in I nun every corner of America and Mexico and the Argentine in n lrnnt.ii; attempt to gather in some of the golden harvest that is to he reaped out of the great army of “boohs.” Everbody drives a ear; everybody drives, moreover, with a recklessness putting to shame the timid taxicabdrivers of Baris, and the clanging and hooting and grinding of brakes add yet another note to the mad volume of sound that is never, by night or dav. even for an instant stilled. SAVINDLTNG THE RUBRIC.

Every day one hears ll'esli stories ol millions that have been made by lucky speculators who have bought land or swamp and “passed the buck” to the public. Admitting that most of these stories are grossly exaggerated, there is still no smoke without lire: and 1 personally can vouch tor the man who made £75,005 in three days, not by speculating but simply by selling land on commission lor one ol the larger linns oi brokers. A young Irieud of mine who lias just leil school has been spending Ins vacation at Balm Beach,

and he tolls me tbui wit limit intei'i'cring willi his holiday he has ben making £IOO a week ever since he has been there.

The commonest story is that ol a rich man who invested £IOO.OOO three mouths ago in an estate for which he has just refused an oiler ol C 3.000.000. In the words of one of the advertisements in Miami Avenue, "AYhat's the use of a lifetime ol toil, anyway

Considered purely as pleasure-resorts, Miami and Balm Reach arc certainly almost idyllic. AA idc. golden beaches sweep down to a crystal-clear blue sea that is always warm; behind them palm groves and great sweeps of vivid green lawn stretch away towards brilliant white Spanish houses hall hidden behind hibiscus and magnolia trees. Boulevards sixty feet wide with surfaces that almost pul a billiard table to shame load on and oil into the entrancing forests, with now and again a graceful concrete bridge, dazzling white spanning a river or a canal, and always the endless procession of tall electric torches that, ill- night-time make these country highways lar more bril limit than Piccadilly.

Every few miles .along the const-line some vast lifteeli-storcy hotel rears its stately towers into the cloudless sky : and in ihe evenings-- if you can atlord it—you can (lane,- in the root garden or stroll about on the moonlit golf links or bathe by searchlight in that incredible sea. And when you come in r.-iun you may order your cocktail <"' s onion Rouge in- u hat you will; .or nobody worries about the Eighteenth Amendment in Miami, nor for the matter ol that in the whole of Florida. For the millionaire pleasure-seeker the foilv miles between Miami and Balm Reach is an earthly paradise. Rut when one is told impressively of “factory sites” and •“industrial centres,” one begins to grow sceptical. Florida so tar has no particular indiisinos, and no harbours worth me name. \ei when one sees what has happened at, .Miami during the past few months, and hears rumours of the vast textile lactories that are coining to Tampa and .Jacksonville. and remembers the truth oi that beautiful maxim that a fool is horn every minute. . . ■ well, is it any

wonder that there are so many "real tors”r