LAND FINANCING.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 356, 14 September 1878, Page 2

LAND FINANCING.

The New Zealand Sun is getting famous for outspokenness. Threats of HbM appear in no way to disconcert its proprietary. All the same they go fur any ■ now thing requiring exposure. Lately,, the Sun announced that a grand fancy dress ball was to bo “given by a gentleman well known in runholding circles in . South Canterbury, and whose fame, once upon a time, was great in our Parliamentary Halls, Provincial and Colonial. The exact sum of £I,OOO is to he spent upon the festivity, the scale of which is so gorgeous as to have turned the head of ‘ the man in the street,’ whose presence is so necessary to the wellbeing and comfort of the dear old ‘ Cathedral City.’” Our contemporary goes on to relate that the giver of the feast had placed his property for sale in the hands of a mercantile firm, the reserve price being fixed at £02,000. “ A few days before the announced sale, two of the gentlemen who manipulate things in that firm,” told the settler they had a purchaser at £52,000, who however would not budge from the price fixed. The offers were increased at £I,OOO per day, till the £02,000, was rendered when the commercial firm gave it to be understood that Mr li. H. Rhodes was the lucky purchaser. The electric wires flashed it through the land, that a few days afterwards, on the station being auctioned, the purchaser had cleared a cool £32,000. The original holder “ found that the rising daily made by the commercial firm, all moonshine, although of a very german-silvery color. These two gentlemen had, early in life, cut their eye-teeth. Scenting ‘a good thing’ from afar, they had arranged with the manager of a well-known Australasian Bank, and with the proprietor of a flourishing Canterbury daily paper, to go 1 snacks’ in a gentle speculation,” ami the whole thing was “financed.” The original holder, armed with sound legal advice, “ wrote to the great firm in whose hands he had unreservedly placed the fructification and sale of his property, declining point blank, to pay them any commission. Strong words we (Sun) fear, appeared in that letter.” In due course, a very gracious missive was despatched by the great firm to the settler, stating that they “ Madly waived any claim for commission on the sale, and that, while hoping that ‘ they would still be friends,’ his attention was drawn to something enclosed—a cheque for £1,000.” The x’eceiver the tight there was too great a sulphurous smell about that piece of paper, and decided to give a grand fancy ball, that the gener.nl public might “ commemorate so praiseworthy an effort as that they had indubitably made towards enhancing the already high tone of morality,” which the transaction exhibited .