A PERNICIOUS SYSTEM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 45, 18 March 1909, Page 2

A PERNICIOUS SYSTEM.

A MAZE OF TRANSACTIONS. In connection with bankruptcy proceedings at Keilding on Tuesday a bank rnpt-.put in a closely-typed .slatement oi thirteen foolscap folios, which woulii have occupied over three columns' o!

*<> ltd print in this paper. It covered the i.Vfin^nclions of loss tltari two yoai'.s !;i j-onin-clion witli the rxolian^s*of land in which Hie bankrupt had been concerned with. Coniinent.inir on Uie bankruptcy, the Ma'iiawatu 'rimes says: Ho hat] kept neither hooks nor bank JUK-rtiml. hut l u . put in this detailed slatonu'iit 01 a maze- of tlie most complicate! tn*n^actions in which farms and town sections and mortgage* and P.X.'s and motor-cars all in y sort of wi/ichs dance which had led to a man who started with nothing becoming poski'smml ins'ulo two years, of three motor- <•;!!•< ami land valued at C2o.MOo—and <*iuliu«r in the Kankmpky Court with a

statement showing a surplus (on paper) ol C7()(>(> olrid. Probably nothing more amazing hi, the way of a statement has ><•(. been made in these parts. It was all speculation an<l 'high' finance. mortgaging and remortgaging. charging of monetary fences, and railway trains. I'uL the abiding impression left after vending it all was tlic absolute pernieioii<uess ol the system of exchanges as it has developed. The harm which speculative exchanging must effect in the aggregate to legitimate enterprise and legitimate funning is incalculable. It must breed a dangerous spirit of gambling and unrest. Oue of the contributing causes to the current difficulties of fanners Ims been the unnaturally

high prices at which many have had to acquire their laud, and one of the iaetun- largely producing this has been the system of exchanges. Kadi parly to an exchange adds heavily to the price—because it is an exchange—and the next purchaser is asked to ,pay a still higher price because the last was supposed to do so. while in the exchange transaction I .price wns less regarded becausQ both I knew that each was 'piling it on' hi. n mutual game of bluff. Presently it may lead l toi an effort to restrict the sab? of rural binds by enacting, for instance, that farms shall not change hands oflencr than olive in a year*