COMMERCIAL.

Bruce Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 20, 13 March 1913, Page 6

COMMERCIAL.

,'—- —•- — MILTON PRODUCE MARKET. RETAIL PRICES. Oats 2s 6d bushel Pollard- ... - - us 6d per Bag Bran Bacon (roll) is per lb' Hams _ ... - iidperlb Butter (ordinary) - ... rod & ndlb. Butter (print) - \ - is 2d &is3d lb Cheese" -•■,... 9"! & iod Eggs° _. .. _ is 4d per dot, Fowl Wheat _ - 4s 4d per bushel New Potatoes ... - 7 lb tot Is Bacon Pigs ... - 5X d P er lb » usual weights. WHOLESALE PRICKS. Flour, per ton - - /BiSs2Oolb , bags Oatmeal, per ton ... Z« ios. Pollard, per ton*. - £6 Pearl Bailey, per ton ... £i% Bran, per ton _ £4 IS B

plied at 7d to lod per lb, according to quantity required. Rabbitskins, hides, fat, horsehair, sheepskins and wool, also opossum skins are wanted, and good prices are assured. We respectfully solicit correspondence and consignments. Country orders promptly and careluliy attended to. i REILLY, GILL & CO., , Auctioneers, Moray Place, Duntdin.

THE OPIUM DIFFICULTY. THE POSH lON IN INDIA. The Government has refused to lend money to banners upon Indian securities to relievo the money market owing to the look-up of opium in too Climes* I warehouses. Commenting on Britain's reported intention to terminate the opium agreement arrived at with China in 1911, the 'Daily Chronicle' says: "It has beon inevitable for t>ome time that Great Britain would be compelled to take-'acton on the opium' question, „in view of the serious situation in which Indian merchants have beeen pJaced. The position briefly is this: In 1907 an edict was issued in China that the cultivation of opium should cease; whereupon the Indian Government undertook to reduce the export of Indian opium to China by one-tenth annually, which, would extinguish the trade in a decade. As China was fulfilling her obligations and was gradually suppressing the iopiura trade, a now agreement was made in 1911, wheroby the trade was to cease in seven years, India reducing her experts ifi the same ration as China reduced tne poppy cultivation. 'VI) •cover, India undertook not to expo-t opium t<j those provinces where the cultivation had entirely ceased. "Indian opium is pract-cally a Stile monopoly, and is disposed of by auction. In view of the and on the assumption that as the stoc'hs were curtailed the price would rise, Indian merchants bought excensiveiy at onhanced prices, greatly to the benefit of the Indian Budgot. Since , the Revolution in China the cultivation of the poppy has been reommenced on an. extensive scalo,"*and the provincial authorities, in violation of the treaty, have refused to let in Indian opium and set up other illegal restrictions. Huge stocks of Indian opium have thus been held up in bond in tie treaty ports of Shanghai and Canton —one account puts their value at 11,000,000—and merchants and bankers are faced with financial ruin." Consequently, they appealed to tie Indian Government to adopt one of three courses: (1) to insist <>n tne observance of the treaty, (2) .to take back the opium purchased on the sup- ■ position that the treaty would be carried out and refund the money, or tf) stop further sales in India until the , merchants' stocks had been cleared.