42 OSTKICH-FAEMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



daiy line, the neighbour should be compelled to con- 

 tribute half the cost. 



Some years ago a movement was made in the colony 

 to get legislation on this subject, but great opposition was 

 shown to it by the less enterprising part of the com- 

 munity, and no act has succeeded in passing. Whilst 

 we should hesitate to go the length of the Australians 

 in compelling an unwilling neighbour to find half the 

 necessary capital, which, if his financial position was 

 bad, might prove ruinous, much of this difficulty would 

 have been met by allowing the man that wants to 

 fence to find all the capital, and then to take a pre- 

 ferential lien on the other man's farm to the amount 

 of 10 per cent, annually on the half-cost of the fence 

 for fourteen years, by which time, if we reckon the 

 normal rate of interest on money at 6 per cent., the 

 extra 4 per cent, w^ould have formed a sinking fund, 

 which in fourteen years would have extinguished 

 the debt. And as the property would have been im- 

 proved to a greater extent than the half cost of the 

 fence, the mortgagees would not be affected by this lien 

 being preferent. Or, better still, if the government 

 were to advance the money on these terms, as it now 

 does on irrigation works, which are much more liable 

 to destruction, and probably of less advantage to the 

 country than fencing. 



