FINANCE AND TRADE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1696, 31 August 1904, Page 85 (Supplement)

FINANCE AND TRADE.

Th© gold output from the Transvaal for June is 308,2190z. t of the value of £1,309,231, making th© total for the half-year 1,815,2150 z., value £7,710,534, as against 2,955,7490 z, value £12,539,248, for the whole year 1903. The total yield for June shows a decrease for the Transvaal of 6,2610 z., value £26,595, as compared with the returns for May, the decrease for the Rand" being 6,6730 z, value £28,345. During the last three months the wastage of natives has totalled nearly 4,000. The net loss for April was 203, for May 1,799, and for June 1921. Unfortunately there is little likelihood that the labour supply will show much improvement during title nest few months. A similar period must elapse before the Chinese arrive here in sufficient numbers to make their presence felt. The number of natives employed in the mines at the end of June was 68,857.

The Marine Insurance Correspondent of “The Times” writes: —'The greatest indignation is felt at the action of the Russian Volunteer steamer Peterburg in stopping and- searching two British steamers in the Red Sea. The Peterburg passed from the Black Sea through the Dardanelles as a mercantile steamer under the commercial flag—• she would not have been allowed to pass as a warship—and then mounted guns as a cruiser. Her status at present is taken to be that of a privateer with a strong flavour of the pirate. Auxiliary cruisers are, of course, recognised as legitimate, but not vessels which change at will from the commercial to the war flag. It is strongly felt.that our Government must resent the action of this steamer and stop its repetition, unless a dangerous precedent is to be created. Already the circumstances of the case, taken with the confiscation of the British steamer Allanton, give rise to undesirable comments. “Why,” it is asked, “do these incidents happen only to British steamers and not to- those of nations like the Germans or Americans, whose Governments are known to be quick to resent any interference with their subjects?” There are large numbers of steamers of nationalities other than British engaged in trade with Japan—contraband and ordinary—and one hears very little of any interference with them.

“The Ironmonger” publishes the following cable despatch, dated Philadelphia, June 30:—The conditions are extremely complicated, and it is impossible to say whether the outcome will be a complete collapse in prices of such a wholesale curtailment in output as will enable manufacturers to maintain their present schedule. If the latter course be the cue selected, it will involve during at least three months a induction of one-tliird in the average output during the last half-year and the discharge of a vast army cf men, not only in mines, mills, workshops, etc., but on the railroads as well. The wced-ing-out process and wage reductions have Been going,on for months, but they are by no means complete, and unless there be unlooked-for unanimity of action prices must sustain a severe decline At present there is practically no demand at all, and the market is duller and weaker, but without quotable ohange.

The two new steamers of 21,000 tons each, Dakota and Minnesota, which, are about to start a service from Puget 'Sound to Japanese and Chinese ports, Will inaugurate a serious attempt on the •part of Americans to substitute wheat for the rice and other inferior grains which are the staple food in Japan and China. The boats are owned by the Great Northern Steamship Company and will run in connection with the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. It

is believed that, if cheap wheat and flour, assisted by the cheapest means of transport, can be placed in large quantities on the Japanese market, they will oust the imports of Burma rice. It is an interesting experiment, on which about £1,000,000 has been staked, and, if it is successful, will seriously affect not only the growers of rice m Burma, but also- the British smpowners who do most of the carrying trade between Rangoon and Japan.