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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4153, 13 July 1874, Page 2

Amono the returns lately presented to Parliament, was one showing the expenses incurred in connection with each of the immigrant ships that have arrived in New Zealand, in the course of the year ending 31st May, 1874. The ships were sixty-three in number. The total amount of expenditure in connection with them was £25,010. The number of immigrants they brought was 12,901, and the amount of gratuities paid in connection with them was £13,245 ; cartage, wharfage, maintenance, &c, amounted to £7476 ; quarantine and medical expenses amounted to £3455. In the case of the ship Punjaub, that arrived in Lyttelton, there was a Commission of Inquiry which cost £BO, and the quarantine expenses in connection with her amounted to £990. The expenses in connection with the Douglas, at Wellington, were over £2OO. Those of the Duke of Edinburgh, also at this port, reached £95. The wreck of the ship Surat cost the Government £ll6B, of which £685 were expended in clothing for the passengers. A detention of the ship Scimitar at Port Chalmers for three days cost the country £69. The quarantine expenses in conneetion with the fourteen ships which brought disease with them, were as follows: —Edwin Fox (Otago), £139 ; Halcione (Wellington), £ll4 ; Punjaub (Canterbury), £990 ; Douglas (Wellington), £209 ; Lady Jooelyn (Otago), £l7l ; Duke of Edinburgh (Wellington), £95 ; Ocean Mail (Wellington), £4l ; Mongol (all ports), £584 ; Carnatic (Otago), £251 ; Scimitar (Otago), £4BB ; City of Glasgow (Wellington), £9O; ' Woodlark (Wellington), £55 10s. ; Dorette (Auckland), £lB4 ; and Golden Sea (Wellington), £45. Of nominated immigrants, the 1729 who arrived were distributed as follows :—Canterbury, 661 ; Otago, 415 ; Wellington, 227 ; Auckland, 189 ; Westland, 90 ; Hawke's Bay, 77 ; Nelson, 30 ; Taranaki, 24 ; and Marlborough, 16.

It is not improbable that the experience of tho Treasury of the Custom-house of the chief port of Otago may be taken as affording proof as good as it is satisfactory of the progress of New Zealand as measured by. the standard of Custom-house returns. In the year ending 1872-3, the revenue collected at tho Custom-houso of Dunedin amounted (in round numbers) to £240,022, and in 1873-4 it was not les3 than £363,177. An increase of fully a third, on figures so large, must certainly be taken as indicative of progress. The increase is shown in every month of the twelve; but the largest, of course, was in September, just before the new tariff came into operation. In the following month (October) the increase was over £IO,OO0 —or one-third more than in the corresponding month of tho previous year. Last month the increase was nearly £4OOO.

We observe from the Melbourne papers that a deputation from the Chamber of Commerce of that city lately waited on the Hon. the Attorney-General of Victoria for the purpose of impressing upon the Government the desirability of pushing forward the Criminal Law and Practice Statute Amendment Bill at present before the Legislature, or of introducing a bill similar to the 27th Vie. No. 22, passed in New Zealand, for the apprehension of offenders who have escaped from other Australian Colonies to New Zealand. It was pointed out by the deputation that at present great difficulty existed in bringing to justice an offender who succeeded in reaching Melbourne from other Colonies, and vice versa. The warrant for his arrest had to be signed by the Chief Justice, or one of the judges of the Supremo Court, and there was no power beyond sending the criminal back to the Colony where the offence had been committed. This state of things was held to be objectionable, and calculated to defeat the ends of justice ; and by way of remedying it the New Zealand statute had been found to answer admirably. Mr. Kerferd thought such an Act as that alluded to was ultra vires, but at the same time ho promised that the Government would press forward the Bill at present before the Legislative Council.