Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The revenue of Singapore is more than sufficient to pay its expenses: it arises principally from land-sales and land-tax; from farming out the privilege of retailing opium and spirits; from the rent paid for public markets; and from pawnbrokers' licenses. The sums derived from these sources are increasing every year.
Another class of scamps used to attend land-sales, who would conspire to keep down the prices of lots they wanted, by not bidding against each other, and by playing various other tricks, to the detriment of the revenue. The Attorney-General got hold of half a dozen of those gentry in 1839, and prosecuted them for conspiracy.
He was for doing so, for settling the whole business there and then. Ocock, however, took the opposite view. Considering, said he, that the site chosen was far from the centre of the town, Mahony might safely postpone buying in the meanwhile. There had been no government land-sales of late, and all main-road frontages had still to come under the hammer.
4th, Capitalists of L.1000 and upwards can make, apart from wool-growing, twenty per cent. on their money without being in trade, chiefly by buying at the government land-sales, and subdividing the section into small allotments, or by building houses, shops, &c. The average of rental returns the capital in four years.
But from this he excused himself, with a laugh and a spit, on the score that no land-sales had yet been held in their neighbourhood: when he DID turn out of his present four walls, which had always been plenty good enough for him, he wanted a place he could "fit up tidy"; which it 'ud stick in his throat to do so, if he thought it might any day be sold over his head. Mahony winced at this.
Word Of The Day