VANCOUVER’S BOOM.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3628, 14 September 1912, Page 10

VANCOUVER’S BOOM.

A GLOOMY PICTURE. GREAT SET-BACK COMING. There is a land boom in Vancouver and throughout British Columbia, and, in the opinion of Dr. Milne, who lias returned to Sydney after six months’ residence in Vancouver, the inevitable burst is not far oft'. “Lots of money has been made in real estate in British Columbia,” he said. “Indeed, trafficking in land is the principal industry there just now, everyone being more or less engaged in it. Land values are enormously inflated. Land in the principal streets of Victoria or Vancouver is as dear as it is in Pitt street or George street. For bush land a good distance from a station 100 dollars —equivalent, of ccurse, to £2O in English money—is asked per acre, and it takes from 100 dollars to 300 dollars per acre to clear it. Those who take up the land often don’t make interest on their tnoney, and just Jiang on till they succeed in selling to someone who- knows less than they do.

■•ln the residential areas one would have to pay more for a weatherboard house than lie would pay here for a brick house. The cost of living \t about a third higher than it is in .Sydney. The bulk of the meat and butter consumed in Vancouver comes from Australia and New Zealand. Vos, that seems extraordinary, doesn’t it ? Most of the vegetables come from tlie United States.” "There ought to be no difficulty in getting immigrants from there,” the pressman remarked. “None whatever. A live agent could fill’a ship with young men anxious to come here. They realise -that the prosperity that Vancouver and Victoria are at present enjoying has no substantial foundation, and that there must lie a great set-back soon. great many of them find the winter climate too trying. There are no industries to speak of behind the place and already there is difficulty of getting employment. 1 have seen graduates of Oxford and Cambridge universities doing pick-and-shovel work on the roads because there was nothing better offering. Money is getting very tight. Eight- per cent, is the ruling price for mortgages, and for overdrafts from 7 per cent, to 10 per cent, is charged. During my stay in Vancouver severel representatives of English capitalists came out to invest money, but went away without doing .so. A lot of ‘graft’ goes on. “No Australian fully appreciates his own country till he leaves it. There are few places in the world where nature has been so lavish of her gifts or where the public life is cleaner or where so many opportunities for making headway exist for those with any grit at all in them.”