Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 14

11.—As To The Value of The Enterprise

11.—As To The Value of The Enterprise.

The high character of New Zealand as a field for the investment of capital has long been known to practical observers, but the construction of public works, more especially the formation of railways, has recently imparted to it an impulse of a most marked character.

The history of land settlement in New Zealand may be briefly told.

At first immense blocks of land were taken up for pastoral purposes, while agricultural farming was carried on upon a small scale. Later on it became apparent that laying down English grasses enormously increased the pastoral capabilities of the soil, and from that time the extent of land so treated has rapidly increased. Later still it was ascertained that the production of grain was more profitable than sheep farming, even when conducted on English pasture carrying seven or eight sheep to the acre, and thus vast quantities of land have been and are being laid down in crops.

page 15

The growing increase in the value of improved land in New Zealand has long been patent to persons connected with the Colony, hut lately, as railways have been completed, and have opened up communication between the seaboard and the interior, this increased value has augmented in a very remarkable manner.

Recent sales in the Colony have demonstrated that during the last few years land has steadily increased each year in value by at least 25 per cent.

Fair land, ready for the plough, and within easy distance of a railway, readily sells for from £7 to £11 per acre, while several estates which have been cut up into farms have sold for an average of from £12 to £14 per acre, as appears by the published accounts of sales of land which are now taking place in New Zealand. An instance of this may be given. A property of 17,000 acres in the province of Canterbury which adjoins Otago and Southland, has recently been sold by auction with the stock thereon for £191,000, the land being in no way superior to the properties now purchased, and not nearly so well placed for carriage to port.

Subdivided lands in South Canterbury with an inland carriage to port of about double the distance, and a soil not superior to the lands in question, have recently been selling at from £10 to £15 per acre, and upon the other side of the Mataura River immediately opposite the Company's Estate, settlers have purchased from the Crown by auction on the deferred payment system, at prices of upwards of £7. 10s. per acre, and this for naked Crown land, unfenced and without buildings, or other improvements.

Herewith will be found extracts from newspapers and other public documents, shewing the results of sales in various parts of the country in the neighbourhood of these properties, from which it will be seen that the price proposed to be paid for these estates is far below the value which properties in the neighbourhood are realizing. Official statistics page 16 are also appended, showing the results obtained from the land under cultivation in the various colonies over a series of years.

A table is also attached showing the present value of the shares in various Colonial Companies established in Great Britain.