WELLINGTON.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIV, Issue 1027, 1 May 1857, Page 2

WELLINGTON.

(From the Spectator, March 28 .)

During the past week the attention of merchants and others seems to have been so entirely engrossed with matters connected with the departure of the Oliver Lang, that there is absolutely nothing in current transactions to report.

The cargo of the Oliver Lang, however, suggests two or three points which it may not be irrelevant to notice. There have been shipped at this port 1201 bales of wool, weighing 374,898 lbs., besides flax, whalebone, &c. Now it we deduct the quantity shipped in the name of merchants, and growers in. Nelson Province (34,467 lbs.), and if we farther deduct one-fifth as a proportion that,, although belonging to and shipped by Wellington merchants is not the growth of this Province, we shall still have 272,3,0 lbs. produced by, and the value of which X say £17,000,: is to be divided among our own flockmasters. But there is another view in which the whole cargo is of importance. With some small and unimportant exceptions, the cargo shipped at this port, the declared value of which is £27,569 Bs. 9d. is a remittance from Wellington to London, thus showing that large as, our imports are now becoming, we are raising the meana of payment to no small extent within ourselves, and we may therefore reasonably hope that the natural increase of the flocks, the greater care that is being bestowed upon them, and the opening of new lands for depasture ing purposes will soon give us an export in Wool alone, that willp:y England for the supplies we must still look to it for. -

But the 17 tons of flax now exported must not be overlooked. It is greatly to be regretted that this in-

digenous product of New Zealand, scattered as \tis "broadcast" over the whole colony, should yet be so unproductive in a commercial sense. That it will eventually be turned to profitable account, we have the moat confident belief. Possibly, people as well as machinery, are required before it shall become, a large aiticle in our commerce. The premiums offered by the General Government may do something to stimulate the conversion of the raw material into a merchantable article, and, although; we confess ourselves somewhat sceptical in this matter, we shall only rejoice to find -rirselves mistaken. In the meantime, attention might be given to turning it to some account here instead of Bending it elsewhere to be manufactured. Our goahead cousins on the other side of the Pacific seem to regard a Paper Mill as necessary as a Flour-mill in their new settlements. Now paper—the for which are becoming so scarce in Europe—is precisely the article for which the Flax would supply materials to. any extent, and if we might not for many years comJ«ta with Whatman or Moinier, still if we only prouced the coarser sort, we might see bales of Wrapping paper taking their place with bales of wool among our exports. And if a still coarser article were manufactured, similar to the "Roofing paper" that has been occasionally imported, the use of Iron for roofs might become general, as the greatest objection to its use for dwelling-houses would be removed, if a thick layer of paper intervened between the iron and the boards, so as to sheck the heat. Why should not the principle of Association be brought to bear on this ? We have no faith in "Flax companies" all of which hitherto have turned out utter failures, but we do think that a joint stock Paper-mill—say somewhere in the Manawatu or wherever the flax abounds, might yet be worked with profit not only to the shareholders. but to the whole colony. ■