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New Zealand Mail, Issue 422, 13 March 1880, Page 14

Most gratifying is the news contained ia our cable messages from London in this issue. These state that the wool market continues firm, there being an active demand for all descriptions of the staple, which has resulted in the late advance being still further increased by a halfpenny to a penny per pound " all round." This intelligence will give a feeling of unmixed pleasure to every reader who this morning peruses, as it does to ourselves to publish it. The arithmetically inclined are apt on the receipt of this class of news to multiply the amount of .the rise or fall in price by the total amount of wool exported from the colony, and thereby deduce the many thousands of pounds the State will be richer or poorer by the market's fluctuation. But at the present juncture the benefit to the more vital half of our national trade, great as it is, will not, perhaps, be the most important outcome of the increase in value of our chief export. The indirect benefit resulting from the increased confidence and buoyancy it will impart, at a time when there are many indications of the long prevalent depression coming to an end, are simply incalculable. We venture to say there will be a more hopeful feeling in commercial circles throughout the country to-day than has prevailed for many months past. Nor will the news that the price of Adelaide wheat has declined Is. in the London market act but to a very small extent counter to the more gratifying intelligence with regard to wool. A combination of circumstances would seem to demonstrate almost to a certainty that a decrease in the price of the cereal can be but temporary, and in any case the price to be received for wheat exported from New Zealand will be but little influenced by the present fall in value of the South. Australian product. At all events, we have for the present the more important good news to rest upon, and it is by no means improbable that notice of a further rise within a short time will be to hand. That is an event all will most anxiously look for. The difference of a penny in the price of wool just now is of more interest to every man and woman in Australasia than the fall of an old world empire. y ■