ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9735, 25 May 1897, Page 3

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

(FROM OUK SPECIAL CORBESPOXDENT. LONDON, April 15, I As to the long-vexed question whether or I not it would be possible for colonists visiting London to obtain any view of the Queen's Record Reign Celebrations without paying % small fortune per seat, I may mention that the Agent-General for New Zealand is still in communication with his brother Agents- ! General and with the Colonial Office on the subject. I believe that Mr Reeves is pressing the desirableness of an early adoption of one of the two alternative courses suggested, the one being ad version of the procession route to include Victoria street, and the other being the erection of a colonial grandstand in some suitable locality, a small charge per Jhead being made to defray expenses. Mr H. C. Cameron, the founder of the Manchester Colonial Produce Stores, has been temporarily appointed Government Inspector of New Zealand produce, in succession to Mr Henry feray, who recently resigned the post, and who left for New Zealand by the s.s. lonic to-day- The appointment at present is merely a provisional one', pending the definite, sanction, of the New Zealand Government of the new arrangement, under which Mr Cameron still carries on his Manchester business of produce distribution, visiting Manchester, however, only occasionally and making London his headquarters. There can be no doubt at all that Mr Cameron is by far the best man available for the poeition, taking everything into consideration. Not only is he one of the few men who have succeeded in thoroughly grasping tlie true conditions of the" colonial produce distribution in its most difficult and important* phase—that is to say, this end of the question—but he also possesses the essential qualification of being thoroughly , well acquainted /with the colonial phase of the matter, having studied the entire problem at the New Zealand end as well. " At the request of the Agricultural Department of New Zealand the Agent-General is endeavouring to obtain from France some fowls of the famous Houdin breed, which he hopes to be able to ship for the colony at an early date. He hae met with the utmoet courtesy and ready assistance in France. Much uneasiness has been excited among the British farming and dairying community and still more among the Dutch and German producers, by the recent investigations made under the auspices of the Board of Trade into the quality of the various classes of butter imported into this country and sold in the market. The result has been to show that the butter imported from Holland, Germany, Rueaia, Denmark and Norway is very badly adulterated, and that the practice of adulteration is exceedingly widespread. The German and Dutch are convicted as being the worst of the offenders, no fewer than 55 out of 120 samples from Holland being adulterated, and 37 out of 125 from Germany ; similar results, although not quite so bad, being arrived at in the case of , Russian, Danish and Norwegian butter. One Hamburg case was particularly bad. The Hamburg exporter had actually issued a circular lamenting that other trad*»ra sent to England butter largely mixed with margarine, guaranteeing that his own butter" was wholly free from oils, chemicals, and foreign fata. Unluckily for this honest exporter his butter was tested by two different English analyisfcs who found it to be adulterated to the extent of 26 per cent. On the other hand all the colonial butter triumphantly passed the tests and received an absolutely clean certificate, although eighteen different samples of New Zealand butter were stringently tested. Commenting upon this outcome, oue of the London dailies remarks—"The moral of this evidently is that if we must buy butter from over sea, let us buy it from our own colonies." Although the British butter, not coming imder the category of " imported " was not included in these teets, it is generally admitted as a point which cannot be seriously •contested that its quality is greatly inferior to butter imported from Australia and New Zealand, mainly on account of the oldfashioned and uncleanly methods adopted in its production , in the farm .dairies. All the bad ways of standing the milk in open pans exposed to various taints, making the butter in antiquated churns liable to various kinds of pollutions, and then having it freely handled and pawed about by not always immaculately pure fingers, are still carried on just as they were in "the year 1 "or thereabout. All this of course makeg for the interest of the wiser colonial producers who co-operate and employ more modern and cleanly methods. Colonial producers may be forgiven for hoping that it will be long ere the B.F. recognises the necessity of cooperation and cleanliness in dairy production. ■■■■■.'•" ■-' ' .";'■'; . ■-' ; ; '■■■ .. . ,The_ eighteenth general meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Mortgage Company was held on the sth inst., at the Cannon street Hotel, Mr Arthur Flower presiding. The proceedings hadvery small re- ' ference to New Zealand, the business being almost entirely in Australia. The Chairman mentioned that the Company's loans on mortgages had been classed under three heads, Victoria and New South Wales forming one group, New Zealand another, and Queensland a third. He said that the' Company's loans in New Zealand, which were formerly under the supervision of Messrs Miles and Co., bad ' latterly been in the hands of Mr Archer, who was at one time a partner in that firm. The Chairman farther stated that the Company's loans in New Zealand at the beginning of this year amounted to only some £11,000, and that no anxiety whatever was felt with regard to them. He expressed the opinion that the shareholders would very likely have to be content with lower rates for their loans on mortgage than those ruling five or six years ago. Nevertheless, he thought some improvement might be looked for on the rates current for such loans- during the last year. Mr Flower also observed thac although the shareholders had been generous enough some years ago to increase the Directors' fees from £1000 to £1500, they had not seen their way for eeuie j«ju» & take mere than, .the farmes '•

Bum, and that under the present conditions it was their intention to confine expenditure under this head to £500 until more prosperous times recur. (Applause.) The report and balance sheet /were unanimously adopted, and the retiring Directors were re*, elected, as also were the Auditors, namely, Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore and Messrs James and Edwards. The meeting closed with a very cordial vote of thanks to the Chairman and Directors, the mover expressing the conviction that they had coudncted the business to the utmost of their ability, and that the lack of a dividend was wholly due to circumstances over which the Directors had no control. In the annual report of the North British and New Zealand Investment Company, the Directors state that owing to the difiioulty of finding suitable loans iv New Zealand and the large unemployed balauces in the colony, the Directors brought Home funds, and out of £20,195 debentures maturing during the year paid off £11,165. At the close of the year the investments in the colony amounted to £111,570, distributed over 45 loans. Owing to the death of on&of the borrowers, and the insolvency of hie estate, interest on a loan of £2500 has not been paid, and no interest on this loan has been taken into the accounts, but the colonial Board anticipate no loss on this loan. .With this exception, and an amount of £158, which has since been received, all interest at December 31st has been paid. The result of the past year's working has left a balance at the credit of profit and loss account of £2525. Out of this the Directors have transferred to reserve fund £500, leaving £2025, out of which waa paid the interim dividend for the first halfyear at 5 per cent, por annum, leaving an available balance of £1379, and it is pro« posed to pay a dividend at the rate of 3J per cent, on the paid-up capital of the Company, which, with the 2£ per cent, already paid, makes up 5 per cent, for the year, leaving a balance to be carried forward to the next account of £275. At a meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute held last Tuesday, Sir Frederick Young presiding, Captain Lord Charles Betesford, - R.N., and. the following New Zealanders were duly elected Fellows of the Institute— Messrs H. J. Greenslade, Thomas H. Lance and John Meeson. An interesting paper on " Dairying in New Zealand " by Mr A. F. Somerville has been published. He states that the best cheese in New Zealand is that, made by a certain Mr Candy. He further says that the cheese produced by the. Otago Dairy Factory is decidedly disappointing, and that New Zealand cheese factories generally have not been a success, the. cheese being much inferior to that of England and Scotland. He remarks that the principal object kqpt in view is evidently to produce cheese that will be ready for consumption in a short period, and he asserts that there is no possibility of New Zealand cheese having any effect upon the position of British, cheese in the Home marJcot. New Zealand butter, on the other hand, has, he says, already made its market. He considers that the New Zealand butter industry has been sue* cessful, but that tho product is marred by the presence of noxious weeds in the pasture. He observes that there appears to be a want of cleanliness on the part oi the oldee farmers which damages the quality of their produce. these references it will be observed that Mr Somerville's praise and blame are about equally balanced. The Statist has misread one passage in the New Zealand. Financial Statement to mean that the plan of issuing debentures against sinking fund accretions introduced by Sir Julius Vogel in 1884, is to be abandoned altogether, and upon this assumption it saye, '■" Now that the sinking funds are to be used to redeem debts, there is some hope that the New Zealand finances will improve. At any rate we shall now know the country , * real financial position." Some people might regard this as rather a non sequit&r even it the premises were correct, whioh unfortunately they are nob. Even tHe Statitl does not know everything. ;,..' Does anyone in New Zealand really know, I wonder,' what a number of separate and important functions an Agent-General fos the colony has to fulfil 1 I suspect not. In reality he is a veritable Pooh Bah as regards the multiplicity of his offices. He is AgentGeneral, Stock Agent, Commissioner undeg the Public Revenues Act, Trustee of the Sinking Fund Loan of 1863, Custodian under the Public Securities Aot. 1895, • a Governor of the Imperial Institute, Mid Delegate under the Lost Debentures A«4, 1886. In this connection it may be interesting to give a few statistics relating to the work done in the New Zealand Agency-General, In the year 1881 no fewer than 1030 vouchers were passed for payment; last year thia number had increased to 2463, and the average of ten years has been 1717. Then whereas i n 1881, sixty-three policies in the Government Life Insurance Department were registered at the Agency-General, lost year as many as 374 policies were registered. Last year no fewer than 108 orders for goods and material were issued from the Department, involving the making of 455 different contracts, and in the same year 17,598 packages of goods aud material were shipped by the Agency-General, the aggregate weight of 8593 tons dead weight. Lastly, I may mention that the number of publications relating to New Zealand which have been distributed by the Agent' General's Department during the past six years has been successively as follows; —In 1891, 13,289; in 1892, 26,207; m 1893, 29,774; in 1894, 32,616; in 1896, 38,365; in 1896, 44,335. Mr Beeves has managed to do rather aa ingenious bit of advertising for New Zealand dairy produce. A remark of Sir A. Adand Hood's in the produce marking debate gave Mr Reeves- the excuse tor writing the following letter to The Times: —"A year ago you were good enough to give mc space to contradict an assertion of Sir A. Adand Hood with regard to colonial cheese. The assertion was made in the House of Commons in the debate on Mr Mildniay's'Bill for marking imported pro*, duce. In this year's debate on Mr Digoy'e Marking Bill, I see that Sir A. Adand Hood had returned to the charge against imported cheese. This year, indeed, be does not specially refer to colonial. But, to be fair, he should have specially exempted it. Permit mc, speaking for the colony of New Zealand, to deny the suggestion of adulteration in the cose of our cheese as emphatically as I denied it last year. Because some foreign country may adulterate its dairy produce,, that does not justity a general denunciation. British colonies do not permit adulteration of their exports. Permit mc also to point out that a paper published by her Majesty's Govern* ment has recently proved this condueively so far as colonial butter ie concerned." And then the Agent-General appended the report of the Select Committee on food products' adulteration, to. which I have several times referred, and which you may remember showed the New Zealand dairy produce to be absolutely free from adultora* tion, whereas the batter of several other countries which largely serve Great Britoia was found to be adulterated to an enormous extent. '-" . t Not only did the Times publish the letter, but it also had a leader in the same issu* virtually on the contents of Mr Beeves'* letter.