FINANCE AND TRADE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3777, 27 June 1899, Page 7

FINANCE AND TRADE.

“New Zealand Times” Office, Monday evening. The Customs returns for to-day amounted to £1953 5s 3d.

The annual report and balance-sheet has been issued of the Scottish Metropolitan Life Assurance Company, Limited, which has been established for twentythree years, and transacts chiefly employers’ liability an daccidont insurances m lids colony. An examination of tho accounts shows evidence of careful management, a steady increase in new business and a sound financial position. Tho capital of tho company has been increased (the now shares issued having been readily taken up at fifty per cent, premium) and now amounts to £150,000, of which £BO,OOO is paid up. * Tho accident premium income has increased by over onethird on last year, and stands at £38,550, the expenses have been slightly reduced, and tho interest earned is very satisfactory. After making provision for all payments, the total funds have been increased from £367,5(55 to £473,186. The head office of the company has lately been removed from Dunedin to Grey street in this city, Mr E. Trevor Gould being manager for Now Zealand, and Messrs Harold Beauchamp and Mar-tin-Kenedy local directors.

A fresh' development has taken place in the frozen meat trade in its local aspects. During tho past six weeks tho quantity of fat sheep coming forward for exportation has been much in excess of what was offering during the corresponding period of last year. This would not, perhaps, have occasioned any inconvenience were it not for the fact that, owing to unfore een circumstances, tho tonnage available for the carriage of frozen meat has been suddenly curtailed. The prolonged voyage of the Perthshire, and the disablement of tho Star of New Zealand by collision, has disorganised the trade by causing a congestion in the shore stores. Nearly all tho companies are more or Joss affected. The Gear Company has its stores and the hulk Jubilee full, and until relieved of this pressure, freezing operations have been suspended. Tire Meat Export Company is not in quite so bad a predicament, but its operations are sensibly - restricted. In Southland there is also a congestion, owing to the accident to the Perthshire), which ought to have taken in a cargo of mutton at the Bluff about cipht weeks ago. Tho pressure would not have been felt quite so much in Wellington had the supplies not shown,so great an increase. It is .likely that the Gear Company’s works will be closed down for some days. The disorganisation of the trade will rather tend to raise prices in London, as it is obvious that less mutton from this colony will bo marketed during the next six or eight weeks.

The latest quotation for North Island frozen mutton emphasises the accuracy of our forecast that a decline would be experienced. For the seven weeks ending with the 6th May there was a rapid advance, and values appreciated a penny per pound, rising from 3jcl to 4Jd. Since then there has been a steady decline, and the present quotation of 3jfd registers a fall of if cl per lb. Values of all descriptions of frozen mutton were affected during the week with an all-round decline in prices. River Plato qualities have come back almost to their old low level of values. The shortage of supplies from New Zealand will no doubt arrest tho , downyard, movement for a time..

The latest Otago dredging venture to be submitted to Wellington speculators is the Waikaka Queen Gold Dredging Company, and its sponsors, Messrs Bolt and Talboys, were the promoters of the somewhat famous Magnetic Dredging Company. The capital of the company has been fixed at the moderate sum of £6OOO, in £1 shares. The vendors take 1050 fully-paid-up shares, and 4900 are offered to the public. This company is being formed 'to acquire and work a dredging claim of eighty acres, situated on both banks of the Little Waikaka River. The ground is said to ho the richest in Otago, excepting the Kawarau and Molyneux rivers. Messrs Harcourt .and Co. are the local brokers, and they have 1000 shares only placed in their han.ds for sale here, the balance having been taken up in Dunedin and Gore.

The crisis in the Transvaal has caused a. serious slump in the market value of Rand shares. There is a strong probability that this movement has spread to the other sections of the mining market. Up mo 9th May the values of Wostralian veniurea were not only not affected, but there was a very appreciable advance. According to the calculations of a London financial paper it was found that between April 10 and May 9, the 24 leading West Australian companies had risen on the average from 351 per cent, premium to 468 per cent, premium, or from £23,117.000 to £29.103,000, a rise of £5,986,000 in a short month, the total capitals of those companies being £5.125,000. If all the other West Australian mines were blanks—and they are far from being so—this £29,103,000 would represent more money than has really been put into West Australian mines. Nominally, the capital created has,been much larger: hut actually it is not, because so much is fictitious, and represented by vendors’ and watered shares. Lake View headed the list with a market value of £5,000.000. Then came Golden Horseshoe, £4,000,000: Associated, £3,937.000: Groat Boulder, £2.975,000; Ivanhoe. £2,200.000: Peak Hill, £1,875.000: and Great Boulder Perseverance, £1,706,000. Tim latest discovery at Kale-oorlie is high grade oxidised ore in the Great Boulder Perseverance, which ought to help the Westralian boom.

Private messages received in town rn nounco that the reef in the Cumberland mine, Rcefton. lias been struck at last. The stone is said to be rich, /and the news is calculated to give an impetus to the shares, which last week ■"'ere quoted at the modest figure of 6d.

The committee appointed to renort on the materials used in making beer in the United Kingdom has attracted r. good deal of. attention, and seeing that tho colonies a v o still largo importers of British malt, liquors, the report is of interest. The point involved is the production of pure beer. , In other words, tho prevention of tho employment of materials other than malt and hons. from which beer is presumablv produced, and is riroduoed bv the leading firms, although under tho existing la.w it is possible for a brewer to produce beer from any materials he chooses to employ. It may he observed that a. list of over 100 substances advertised in the brewing napers was handed +o the committee, all of which it may ho presumed are employed by brewers. The amount of sugar used in making beer has during the nast twelve ye?.rs increased by nearlv 100 per cent., and according to the Inland Revenue witness 25 per cant, of sugar is used in the manufacture of the greater nronortion of tho beer brewed in England, some brewers, indeed, using 60 to TO per cent. In the year ending 1807 the sugar, rice, maize and raw grain used

for brewing was equivalent to 1,616,000 quarters of malt, or nearly 13,000,000 bushels. The report contains a somewhat startling revelation on the decrease in cost of production. It say - s: “Twenty-five years ago the cost of the materials necessary for tho production of 36 gallons of beer, including the malt tax, was 255. r Now, owing to the reduction of values and the dilution of tho beer, the cost to the brewer, with the beer duty, is only 12s 6d.”

The competition for accident insurance is now very keen in Now Zealand. Two British corporations arc actively engaged in tho business, and tho abandonment of tariff's has afforded the field agents scope for touting for business. The premium rates are just now quite 60 per cent, below what they wore about three months ago.

When the Workmen’s Compensation Act was passed in Great Britain there was some doubt as to what would bo the now liabilities. One set of insurance companies charged high rates, and others quoted lower ones. It appears that the steady effect of legal decisions has been to greatly reduce the expected pressure of the Act on tho employer. Tho Scottish Employers’ Liability and General was one of these which went very far in the way of ratecutting.- and it would seem that this has so far been justified by the results, and it was announced that, after careful. tabulation of nine months’ experience, it was prepared not onlv to modify its rate to existing policv-holders- in a. number of trades, but also to deal rather more liberally - with the agents, which looked as if the margin to work upon was a fairly wide one. The next month or two will .see a heavy fi"ht all round to secure now business and transfers at July, and the “Financial Times” does! not think that tho liability can be much further restricted, while it sees a strong probability that some existing decisions in favour of the emplover will yet be reversed on appeal.