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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7229, 1 May 1884, Page 4

One does not usually like to take comfort from the misfortunes of others, but in these days of depression and what, to coin a word, we may term its consequent general '• off-headedness," it is impossible to avoid picking crumbs from whatever source they may come. The other day, the Premier was talking about the price of our great staple products, and one of our business men informed him that the outlook was grievous -in the extreme. Since then we have published two very remarkable pieces of intelligence, one relating to the frozen meat trade, the other to the corn production of Hindostan, the country which at present occupies, among the prophets of evil, the proud position of the cornfield that is to ruin all the other cornfields of the world. Concerning the effect of the Contagious Diseases of Animals Bill, now passing into law in the Imperial Parliament, Mr Sala writes very emphatically. It is bad enough to read about the misery of the poor, without learning that a blow is to be struck at the only animal food they have the opportunity of consuming. But as the Bill, which is for preventing the importation of live stock, means an advance of 25 per cent in the price of meat, the Continental providers, not being ready with refrigerating appliances, the Bill has considerable interest for the Colonial stockowner at the present moment. Arise of lfd per Ibis probably imminent, and a rise of lfd per lb will make the difference between a languishing and a prosperous trade. The item concerning wheat was the description of the dispute between the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and the Directors of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company about the grain rates from the North-west. This dispute brings

out the very interesting arcumstance that the '• authorities are not yet all agreed that the North-western provinces of our Indian Empiro are destined to be, at no distant date, the champion cornfield of the globe. The Bombay Chamber of Commerce think that the growth of the field only requires encouragemont, and tho members of the Bombay Chamber want very much to be handling and turning over consignments. The railway Directors, to whose enterprise tho opening up of such a great trade would be a great benefit, are of tho opinion, on tlio contrary, that the idea of the great cornfield is all moonshine There is yet balm in Gilead. If our prophets would only believe it, how much happier they would be.