COMMERCIAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16620, 17 August 1917, Page 3

COMMERCIAL.

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL.

EFFECT OF SHIPPING SHORTAGE. This is the quiet week of the month, and business in the wholesale is restricted as usual. Fairly good stocks „ are held all round, and buying is kept down to actual requirements until forward hooking commences., again next week. Retail is about the same, with few changes beyond steady increases in prices.

Building is quiet. _ A little corrugated iron ' has arrived, and this is selling at the extraordinary quotation of, £60 a ton. Prices of other descriptions of iron are in proportion, and high values are having their usual euect ' in curtailing the sale and restricting the demand to cases of necessity. To a certain extent substitutes for corrugated iron rre being used when possible, but most of these have advanced in price considerably. Many sales have been made recently for shipment to the South. . British Trade: The extraordinary feature in the trade returns for July, received this week, is the increase in exports. During the previous three months ' there had been a decrease compared with the corresponding month of last year, but if the figures for July are correctly cabled, the exports were worth £49.833.463, which is -certainly a record since the war began/ and probably an absolute record. As so many lines of export are now prohibited the detai s by mail regarding this great increase should be rather interesting. Potatoes: Fairly heavy sales are reported at £6 10s ex store. Good supplies are now on hand, and further quantities are due to be loading in the South, so that if cargo space is available there should be plenty arriving. The quality is keeping up well. * Seed Potatoes: The marked change in th© weather has at once stimulated an active demand for seed potatoes, and if favourable conditions continue there will be a rapid increase. _ It is getting so late that farmers are taking every opportunity for getting in their seed. Full supplies are now available in all the principal varieties. Onions: Stocks are almost exhausted, and tho interruption to shipping from Australia is making, merchants anxious regarding further supplies Repicked samples arc selling at 19s per cwt. Oats: The local market is still well stocked, but Australian supplies now appear to be out of the question, and the market has consequently hardened. Quotations in the South are a penny or two higher anu holders do not appear at all anxious to sell as the total quantity in Southland is very limited. An official return received this week ! Rives the yield as only 5.470,000 bushels .from the 178,397 acres under crop for the recent harvest, compared with a yield of 7,653,000 bushels from 212.688 acres dropped last year. This great shortage has been "sponsible f ? r rather heavy importations from Australia already, and the resumption of shipping facilities would probably again enable limited quantities to come over although these would be at a higher cost." in the meantime merchants are drawing torn Bluff, and the current quotation >'a 4s lid ex store. wr^^L, Oats: . Tile i improvement in the has not ye made , much increase in the demand for seed oats, but if fine weather should be a good sale. A ustralian seed, is available in good quantity, and if this -* 18 not taken up during the next fewweeks it will be used for feed. Wheat: TOe official figures give last hardest as 5.055.000 bushels from 219 121 acres SEE?* »«. 7.108.000 bushels from 329,207 acres m the 1915-16 season. The shipping collapse is preventing further importation from Australia. Fowl wheat is H «*ce, arrival of a shipment from Australia. Being m good order this has sold well, but the price ib firmer at 'b ex store. mi? and Pollard: Both continue scarce The price is nominally fixed, but as now «>. ° e , ha d. th 's has not so far solved# tile difficulty created by an unusually heavy demand and a supply curtailed by reduced mil'me operations. Chaff: Blenheim chaff is selling at £10 10s, and baled Australian at the equivalent after allowing for the sacks. Maize: Consignments are meeting a good demand at 5s on the wharf in wholesale lines. I Bonedust: The Calcutta shipment will j probably he late for the usual spring 1 demand, but at yesent there are fairly good I supplies on hanfl. Local bonedust has advanced to £11. . Com sacks: Stocks are low, and the delay in further arrivals will probably cause inconvenience to sheep farmers at shearing time. Only limited stocks ore held, and the market is so firm, in Ceylon that it is only a -question of time when the quotations must rise. A cablegram from Colombo this_week advises that no sales were held on Tuesday, no doubt on account of the lark of shin-Dins available. ' Benzine: Agents are cutting down orders for distribution out of a recent arrival, and it is reported that in order to conserve the greatly reduced shipments to arrive the , sales are to be cut down by 5000 pases per * month. " -

Carbide: Very little is available, practically all having been already sold, and the market, has advanced to £65. Paint Oils: Stocks of linseed oil are limited, and wholesale parcels hare been changing lands recently at greatly enhanced prices. Indian oil is selling" at Bs 2d in arums of_ raw and 8s 4dL<for boiled, while E-ip-lisb is worth about fourpence more. White lead is up again, and is now selling ' at 80s per cwt | Flax: Shippers are getting uneasy about the _ increased Quantities that will soon be com in in as the spring advances. Already large' Quantities are held in store/ and the shinning outlook is not at all promising. Kope: Further advances have taken place. Flax rope is now selling at 80s to 87s, and Manila at 98s to 1265. according to Quality. HIGH PRICE OF SILVER. RECORD SINCE 1891. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. CReca. 12.15 a.m.) LONDON. Aug. If. The price ol silver is now the highest sines 1891. the rise being due to Continental demand on practically a bare market.

LONDON TALLOW MARKET. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. CRecd. 11.15 p.m.) LONDON, August 3, At the tallow sales 1320 casks were offered. There was a keen demand, as supplies are shortening, and all sold, prices being as follow:—Mutton, fine 70s 3d, medium 675: beef, fine 68s 3d, medium fiSs. prices including casks.

AUSTRALIAN PRODUCE. Australian and N.Z. Cabl» Association.

(Socd. 11.50 pjaU SYDNEY. August 36Nominal Quotations for oats are:—Algerian, feeding 2s lOd to 3s. milling 3s 6d, T&smanian 3s 8d to 3s 3d: maize, 4s to 4s 3d; onions, £12 No potatoes are offering. _ ADELAIDE. August 16. Oats. 2b id to 2s 4id! J J ' PROPERTY SALES. Mr. G. P. Bennett trill offer for sale by public auction at the Chamber of Commerce, Swanson Street, art noon to-day. a house of Ax rooms in Wellington Street. City; modern five-roomed kauri house in St. Alban's Road, off Dominion Road; and a house of five rooms in Epsom Avenue, on leasehold section (hospital endowment lease, at £6 10s per annum). Samuel VaUe and Sons. Ltd.. will offer for sale by auction at the request of the first mortgagee, under conduct of the registrar, at their rooms, 87. Queen Street, at 2 p.m. to-day, a modern bungalow of _ 5 rooms and conveniences, on section fronting Beckenham Avenue. Epsom. At Alfred Buckland and Sons' Haymarket Salerooms at 2.30 to-day. Mr. E. Muir's Onewhero farm of 600 acres will be offered for sale by auction. " The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co., Ltd., will sell to-day at their Albert Street Land- Rooms, a 6-roomed Bungalow in Hemi Street, Narrow Reck; also two sections at Bayswater.