A DAMPER FOR THE N.Z. MORTGAGE COMPANY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2313, 16 August 1880, Page 2

A DAMPER FOR THE N.Z. MORTGAGE COMPANY.

“ Glasgow Herald.” The New Zealand Mortgage and In. vestment Company (Limited), the prospectus of which has just been issued, is another of those gigantic pawnbroking establishments of which New Zealand has already so many, and which have done some good and more harm to the Colony. They have hitherto, as a rule been profitable ventures for the British capitalists hut an addition to their number is hardly to be welcomed. The investments New Zealand are not always lucrative or desirable, as the experiences gained in the City Bank affair have taught some of us only too bitterly. In fact, this sort of thinghas been overdone. With the prospectus

of the new project is issue;! a reprint of an article from “ Chambers Journal,” which gives a highly-coloured and quite misleading representation of the profits of New Zealand farming. For these representations it is but fair to say oar very respectable contemporary is entirely indebted to Judge Bathgate, a gentleman whose name figures in the prospectus of the new company. Our Dunedin correspondent’s letter shows what the colonists themselves think of Judge Bathgate’s glowing pictures of New Zealand life and farming. And, commenting on the same subject, a writer in the “ Otago Daily Times” of February 27th says that the statement that £2 10s to £3 per acre is the average return from good land in the Colony is incorrect; that as far as it can be arrived at, the average for the last three years does not exceed 30s per acre. He says further, in effect, that at existing rates of interest, a farmer could not afford to give more than £lO per acre on the deferred system of payment for good land within seven miles of a railway, whereas the actual prices of such stations have been run up to £l4 and £ls per acre. They have been so run tip by the aid of ’land investment companies, and in the manner shown in our correspondent’s letter.