MAURITIUS.

Press, Volume X, Issue 1170, 7 August 1866, Page 2

MAURITIUS.

The correspondent ofthe " Sydney Morning Herald," under date Port, Louis, June 14, writes :— The sugar market has not altered since my last. All the fine qualities have become quite unobtainable in tho open market, and only, those firms which purchased fine sugars some months ago have now any for shipment. I ant obliged to write again via Melbourne, as there is little chance of another ship leaving for, Sydney this crop. The quotations giren below for sugars are those last issued by the Chamber of Brokers, but the prices aro mostly nominal, and I doubt very much if ten tons of each of the fine qualities mentioned could be obtained on the island: —Second quality yellow crystals, 7 dollars 50 cent, to 7 dollars 75 cents per 100 lbs; good yellow counters, 6 dollars 50 cents to 6 dollars 75 cents per 100 lbs ; middling do do, 6 dollars 25 cents; good yellow syrup, 6 dollars to 6 dollars 25 cents; good brown do, 5 dollars 25 cents to 5 dollars 50 cents ; middling do do, 5 dollars to 5 dollars 25 cents; low do do, 4 dollars 50 cents to 4 dollars 75 cents. White crystals and all other kinds of sugar except the above are quite unobtainable. I have no change to announce in freights. However, it is fully expected that a demand for ships will exist in about six .weeks, when the new sugar crop will have been received in town. I shall not give nominal quotations again. All I can say is that no charters have been made for any port since my last. This will give your readers an idea of the inactivity that exists here in shipping matters at present. Coals arc scarce, few vessels with cargoes of this article having fut in here for some mouths, in consequence, suppose of the unteinpting Btate of our freight market. I can announce no sales "from alongside," but I think that first i arrivals will probably sell at 10 dollars per ton, or perhaps even liigher. Flour is dull, and 'cannot be quoted higher-than _ dollars 75

cent, per 300 lbs. Chilian bran is firmer, and sells at 2 dollars 75 cents per 100 lbs. Salt beef is declining, owing to the receipt of 400 barrels, of 200 lbs each, from America. Theße are being moved off at 28 dollars per barrel, but the demand is not very active. Our grain market is becoming moderate again, much to the satisfaction of the planters, who havo all of them a large number of mouths to find rice for. This article has been for a good time past very dear here, which is sufficiently alarming in a place like this where nothing eatable is grown except sugar. The "Times," in noticing a sale of New Zealand bonds, to the amount of £300,000, held by Sir Morton Peto, says : — "The New Zealand bonds for £300,000, mentioned as having been sold at an extraordinary sacrifice, owing to the difficulty of raising money at present upon any securities, were those of the Five per Cent. Loan of September, 1864, the amount of which was for £1,000,000, and which waa subscribed at 80. The sale effected is understood to have been at 60." The loss sustained by this transaction does not fall upon the colony as represented, but on Sir Morton Peto. It would have been an act of criminality for the agent of our Government to have sacrificed its securities at such a price without special instructions. It is not greatly to be wondered at that colonial securities, bearing interest at five per cent., forced suddenly into the market, should have sold at a sacrifice at a time when the bank rate of interest had risen to twelve per cent. The depression in the money market in England has not affected the price of New Zealand securities as much as might have been expected, for Mr Stafford informed Parliament on Tuesday last " that the debentures had been sold at home at ninetytwo, notwithstanding the late panic there, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had proposed, in the House of Commons, that the Imperial guarantee should be given to the | half-million debentures remitted home last year."