IMPORTANT TO FARMERS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9356, 27 April 1893, Page 2

IMPORTANT TO FARMERS.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph of the 14th inst. deals with a question that is of the most vital importance to New Zealand farmers and shippers. Id appears that in Sydney the methods In vogue tor stowing and distributing produce imported from New Zealand and Tasmania are most backward and unsatiafaoteiy. We have it on the authority of onr contemporary that many so-called "agents" have no storage room whatever. At present the shipping companies' wharves are utilised aa stotehouf es free of charge, and it not Infrequently happens that when notics is given to consignees to clear the wharves many produce agents, being without) storage accommodation, have no other alternative than to "slaughter" their stocks, thereby creating fictititlous local values and entailing loss to senders, This is equally unjust to larger firms, who at considerable delay have erected store* on valuable frontages with a view to conserve senders' stocks, and to supply the market as required. Holders of such stocks, however, have to suffer in common with all others, and when an order is made to clear the wharves market values often fall to below at fcnal cost, as was the case with oats quite recently. Fluctuations brought about in the local mt-iket by such causes : are not generally known to New Zealand senders, and are more often said to re alt from the proverbial " glut of stocks," or some other cause more Imaginary than real. This is a matter than ought to be taken into the most serions account there, As our contemporaiy sums it up, " There is no doubt that if senders of New Zealand and Tasmanian produce were fully cognisant of the fact that many so-called 1 produce and commission agents ' possessed no more accommodation than a few sqnare feet of office room, and that produce shipments were entirely at the mercy of shipping companies' convenience, the preserk wholesale system of consignment would be amended. It appears, at least, unreasonable that the shipping companies should provide storage free of charge for this particular class of traders. The large number of persons dabbling In ' agencies ' is easily accounted for when it is known that stock can be got on consignment and stored free, advances can generally be obtaind through a bank, demanding little or no capital from agents of this class, who have only to ensure a regular supply from producing centres to warrant a substantial commission, together with 'storage' and other charges, which go to make up very satisfactory results. Without going Into the question of the rightful ownership of whatves, much less advocating any one of the many elaborate schemes put forth to minimise the present d'fficulty, it Is most apparent that the present pernicious system of intercolonial produce traffic, in consignments especially, is productive of adverse results both to senders and mernil an ha, nftan lnnrlinf! our market values a false aspect, which, in some measure, accounts for the spasmodic arrivals of produce, in which there is Invariably a feast or a famine, To onr own products the results are most injurious. New South Wales growers, being controlled, both in value and supply, by lnl jrcolonlal competitors, have no option in the matter of prices, but simply follow In the train of quotations brought about in no email measure by the combined audacity of agents at this end and the gullibility of ; growers and senders at the other,"