Dec. 1896.] FOREIGN AND COLONIAL OFFICE REPORTS. 



319 



December and July, when the advances are repaid, and new 

 loans contracted on a reduced scale. The owners of the grain,, 

 it is evident, seek to derive profit from the difference between, 

 the autumnal and spring prices, which is often very con- 

 siderable. The chief borrowers are proprietors of landed 

 estates ; then follow grain dealers, and, lastly, the peasant 

 farmers, who, according to the organ of the Ministry of Finance 

 have now recourse to the good offices of the bank in yearly 

 increasing numbers. Dealers, however, take advantage of the 

 privilege with greater profit to themselves than the other two 

 classes. 



[Foreign Office Report, Annual Series, No. 1801. Price 4|dL] 



Emigration to California. 



In a report on the distress caused to British emigrants to 

 California by fraudulent land syndicates and emigration agencies, 

 Mr. Warburton, Her Majesty's Consul-General at San Francisco, 

 says that in calling attention to the frauds committed on 

 colonists, and in giving the advice contained in this report, it is 

 far from being his wish to depreciate the advantages of soil,, 

 climate, &c. possessed by the State. The soil is exceedingly 

 fertile and will grow almost anything. The climate is. beautiful. 

 Minerals abound. The scenery, for its beauty, variety, and 

 grandeur, is probably unsurpassed. The object is solely to 

 protect too confiding fellow-countrymen against the schemes of 

 dishonest speculators who have not only caused much misery 

 and ruin to colonists and immigrants in the past, but who have 

 also, as pointed out by the Californian press, worked immeasurable 

 damage and done so much to injure the State. 



The report points out that persons who intend to settle in 

 California should not under any circumstances be induced to 

 purchase land without having inspected it, nor until some 

 practical knowledge has been acquired, in the State, of the kind 

 of agriculture which it is intended to pursue. No part payment 

 should be made until the title to the property has been fully 

 examined by a respectable solicitor. No person should purchase 

 land without having it surveyed, as unscrupulous owners fre- 

 quently state to purchasers that a certain field contains so many 

 acres when as a matter of fact it contains less. No one should 

 invest all he has in a ranch, even if it be fully planted, trusting 

 to make enough from the crop for living and contingent 

 expenses. A reserve fund is, it is stated, absolutely essential to 

 success in ranching. 



The report also contains general information as to the prices 

 of land and produce in recent years, as well as remarks on fruit 

 and vine growing in California. 



[Foreign Office Report, Miscellaneous Series, No. 404. 

 Price l^d.] 



