172
Obvious as were the
advantages of such
a
system in a
Colony
which depended for a
large portion of its
Revenue
on
the proceeds
of the Crown lands, experience shows that
it has had great
countervailing disadvantages. The sale of property at what may be
termed such an upset
rate
is necessarily in the
nature of a sale on credit, and it has
the consequent disadvantage of enabling speculators to buy land not
according to their Capital, but according to their anticipations. The natural results
are a great immediate stimulus to purchase,
a
large increase of
price (which, however, as the payments are deferred is often
more apparent than real) and consequent growth of fictitious or speculative sales for the purpose
of resale,
not of use, but sale, causing in the first instance an
additional rise, but
ultimately an unnatural depreciation.