FARMER'S FAILURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 268, 2 February 1928, Page 15

FARMER'S FAILURE

AFTER MANY YEARS EFFECTS OF SLUMP (From Our Own Correspo7idcnt) HAMILTON, To-day. In the statement made by James Donald Burgess, farmer, of Raglan, to the official assignee at Hamilton, assets were shown at £7O and liabilities at £1,072. * Bankrupt, in his written statement, said he was 47 years of age and married. He had no children. He had been farming all his life and first owned a farm in 1908. Since 190 She had increased his holdings, which were mostly native leases or purchases from natives of freeholds. In 1912 he acquired a lease of a block of native land in Raglan. Many years ago, continued bankrupt, he mortgaged the lease to a bank to secure an overdraft, and in 1927 he was forced out of this place by the bank. Bankrupt said he sold 500 acres to the Government for a soldier settlement. The price was £5,000, and this was all applied in paying off mortgages A few years later, when the slump came, the price of land dropped, and the Government Lands Department made a claim upon him for misrepresentation and damages. He settled the claim for the equivalent of £l,lOO in cash. This payment completely crippled him. A motion to facilitate the bankrupt’s discharge was carried.