THE UPPER-TEN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1364, 11 July 1885, Page 3

THE UPPER-TEN.

The London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian writes:—“There is a very considerable financial danger impending, which, if it breaks, will inflict much damage, especially in London. The indebtedness of English landed gentry by way of mortgages and otherwise is estimated at more than £250,000,000. Of this vast debt the greater part is said to be held by banks, especially private banks, i and insurance companies in the metropolis. |Qf course a very large amount of this debt secured, even in times of the most agrarian depression. But there first mortgages and very many secon»|nd third mortgages which could not be recharged by a sale of the land at present plices, and, whatever may be the hopes of wormers in regard to the consequences oR changes in the land laws, there is not\unong the landed class or their creditors any confident expectation of a rise of prices. It has been slated, as a case typical of thousands, that a gentleman desired the other day to obtain payment of a first charge of £50,000 on an estate in the Midlands, on which a bank had advance £20,000 by way of second mortgage. The estate had been valued for the loan at £120,000. The gentleman was, however, advised that if he foreclosed the second mortgage would be lost, and that the proceeds of the sale would not equal the amount of his advance. In hundreds of cases there is now ever-increasing difficulty in meeting the interest on mortgages, and if there must be, as experts predict, a further and general fall of rents, these payments will be impossible, and the general creditors of the landed gentry will be much embarrassed.