Borrowing and business in Australia

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 183051623X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-222122

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Wood, Gordon L. http://d-nb.info/gnd/1239193688

Title:: Borrowing and business in Australia

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Oxford university press, H. Milford

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: xv, 267 Seiten; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part I. Characteristic features of australian business and an account of the early years

Collection:: Economics Books

12 THE EARLY YEARS AND THE pastoral land will account for the extent to which people living on the spot were caught up in the whirlwind of speculation in land.! Probably the best instances of this speculative fever come from the records of Van Diemen’s Land, where Fenton mentions loans made on the security of land at the rate of 35 per cent. per annum!2 The newly commenced system of immigration, by rendering an adequate supply of labour for development an apparent certainty, helped in no small measure to sustain confidence and to maintain the boom prices for land. The crescendo of speculation was materially aided by the government policy of placing Treasury balances at interest in the banks, where they became available for the purpose of discounts and loans for land purchases. The first check came in 1838, although there had been a revenue deficit of £48,000in the previous year. Weather conditions were most unpromising in all the colonies, and a further cause for uneasiness was the discontinuance of the assignment system of convict labour. At this juncture instructions arrived from the Home Government to increase the price of land from five to twelve shillings per acre, with the avowed object of forcing on the development of land already alienated. The chief effect, however, was to divert speculation from rural areas to town allotments; but, in a final burst, since the order was not interpreted to apply to the land already advertised for sale, a frenzied rush was made by speculators to secure 300,000 acres at the former price. Never- theless, the revenue from land sales rose steadily till 1839,3 ! Population and estimated value of land at Port Phillip: Total. Year. | Population. Buildings. Land. 1837 250 1838 | 1,800 1839 3,000 | R40 5.588 £ 1,800 60,000 112,000 220.750 £ 3,517 17,416 169,542 379.600 £ 5,317 77,416 281,542 603.350 ? History of Tasmania. In 1836 the total paid-up capital of the six banks operat- ing in Van Diemen’s Land was only £200,000; but a considerable amount of capital was transferred to the mainland between 1837 and 1840 for investment in the purchase of town blocks at Sydney and Port Phillip. ® The Crown revenue at Port Phillip, mostly from land sales, rose in the following amazing fashion: 1837, £6,070; 1838, £39,439; 1839. £74.002: 1840. £255.422; 1841 £144.936: 1842. £87.059: 18438. £73.590.

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