BETTER THAN TATTERSAL’S

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3763, 18 April 1907, Page 4

BETTER THAN TATTERSAL’S

* ’ - A Wellington tradesman, anxious to make money more rapidly than his trade would enable him, decided to follow up the State land lotteries, and now, after a few years’ experience, he declares they are better than Tattersall’s! If, he says, you lose with Tattersall your pound is gone, but if you draw a blank at a land ballot your money is returned. Speaking of his experiences at land ballots, he says that in one case he gave ,£448 for 317 acres, under the optional system, and turned the land over, within ten months, for At another ballot he was offered to transfer should he draw a certain section,-but a medical man, another speculator, secured the allotment. He declares that the ballot system has created a speculative fever throughout the whole community, and where land is offered on the optional system the great maiority of the applicants are speculators. This, of course, is very much against the true interests of land settlement, for the abuse necessitates the genuine settler having often to pay double and three times the upset price to a lucky speculator to get on the land. In the opinion of this professional sectionmonger, the 999 years’ lease is such a good thing for the holder that the man who wants the right to convert it into a freehold is a speculator at heart. If he really desired to make a home for himself and the holders of his name, he would be quite content with a system which enabled him to hold land in security at a rental several pounds below the ruling rate of interest.