The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1891-08-06

as l have already said, wehave plenty
of other places ready to take money.
In fact, may tell you-but this is not
for publication-we have no money in
hand. At this moment we are active
ly engaged in loaning money in six
states. all of which are absolutely free
of any restriction, and any one Of
which could swallow up the whole of
our capital any day at remunerative
rates of interest. One OF these states
has an alien act, but they put in a
sweepinp exclusion in favor OF mort
gage companies. 1t won't, however,
allow speculation in real estate.
OF think you said that your per-
centage of foreclosures was very
small? Ayes. We have about Il
million of money invested on mortg-
age, and the foreclosures don't repre-
sent more than or . per cent OF tnat.
Then our rule is not to lend more IMAM
80 per cent on the appraised value Oh
property. may mention that the
Investors Mortgage security COM
pany, which is being flOated, Will get
the whole Of it's 100000 of capital to
be raised meantime absorbed within a
very short period. OF that there is
not the least doubt.
Q.-One more question. The act, |
/ suppose, will not affect the cattle COM
panies? A.-On the contrary it will
strengthen their position, and if there
was any doubt about their position
before the act will remove it.
MIR. ANDREW WHITTON
of Couston, a director of the Alliance
Trust cOmpal = and also of the Scot
fish Ama "icaI Mortgage company
an Edinburgh corporation, with
81 200, 900 invested in America, and
with large number of Dundee share
holders-entered the room during the
interview. Mr.. Whitton, who is
about to leave this country for the
United States in the interest of the
Scottish American Mortgage COM
pany, took very much the same view
of the matter as Mr.. Mackenzie. On
being asked specially with reference
to the last company mentioned, he
said: We have some money invested
in Texas, but we won't be so foolish as
to go on lending money where there
will be risk in recovering it. Rest
assured, however, that act will be re-
pealed in two years. They tried an
alien act of the same kind i'll Ne
braska, and had to repeal it. Al
though Texas were closed to us we
can lend all our money elsewhere.
They are all crying out "Give Us
money! The act may put stop to
the reclamation of land, and it will
therefore increase the value of land
! .,I, L. l.;, nf, ont
gagers who become bankrupts may
be deprecated, but | think the peO-
pie of Texas will soon see the error OF
their ways.
MR.. j. C. ROBERTSON,
secretary to the LeXas Land and Cat
tie company, which has large hold
ing of real estate in Texas, was next
called upon. He was also found to be
quite unconcerned on the subject OF
the act, and made the following state
ment:-I do not think that the new
alien act will have any effect on the
cattle companies owning land in
Texas, inasmuch as it is not retro
spective. We do not want to buy
land, and have no intention of buying
more land; on the contrary our desire
is to sell our lands as opportunity
offers, and we have already disposed
of "a 900 acres, so that we have been
giving to the purpose of the act
Asked as to the probable effect Of the
act on the price of land, Mr.. Robert
son said: "That is question which
it is very difficult to answer. Ouridea
is that the act will be repealed in a
very short time-that the Texas peo-
pie, like those in the other states
where similar acts were passed, will
find that it will be so injurious to
their own interests that they will
speedily repeal it,