ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 741, 24 August 1878, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

THE HOSPITAL, TQ THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING MAIL, • Sib, —I notice in your morning contemporary two letters bearing tljo above (leading, relative to the action of the President in forbidding the distribution of tracts. As your paperjilso reported the meeting at which the informed thg Committee of his action, would it be out of place to ask through you whether this prohibition of the President is a wholesale one, without reference to (1) who the distributors may bo, (2) what is distributed, or (3) whether the patients desire or ask for that which is sought to be prohibited, and also whether the rest of the Committee endorse th(s President's prohibition or not. The answers to these questions may or. may not affect the next annual electionTours, «&c,, paid to A.NOTHEK SuBSCErijHIR TO THE HoSPITiJP'' [For replies to the several questions "put by our correspondent, we would refer him to the Secretary of the Hospital Committee.—Ed. E. M.]

to ran: S»-—I think Mr. Geo O. *•- - - letter to the Lyttelton Tunes .u SSb-ob of the oom dnty <* rei-nat of which appeared in your mora* H ««-' yr^niiT !kEJ«en!tL Adelajd- nod the &4ar ZMtaoi fsrmefs, acaoratngjo ni- . «wn fijjores'the Tssffercnc£ m »wr * ■ Adelaide is only3d. per <>n s-iek*, or equal to one-aixteenth of * p*»»ny P babel; for I take it that it matters not to which Government the dnty is' P*™, is an impostor handicap jnst the aa.ne lad no one should be better aole to Appreciate this than the late Canterbury Siandkapper. And, again, « uLt Z competition from Australia in oats more imaginary than rent ? T i an extract from a letter signed b. the Otago Daily Times, New Zealand wheat ia worth 4a. 9d. to 5a.; oats, 4a. 7d. to 4s. Od. per bushel m Sydney ,wh»e ■the price here ia—wheat (for beat), Js. «9d.; oata, 3a. 8d- to 3a. 10d. Is it not a well-known fact that it w Australia that ihaa to. fear competition from New Zealand, and not New Zenland competition iron? Australia t I think rt would be sptvyinz oar Australian cousins rather a left-handed compliment to auppoao that they wonld be guilty of (so to apeak) sending: <eoals to Newcastle. Mr. Stead aaaerta "That by no possible argument can it be shown that the farmer recovers the tax from the consumer. My experience ia that he does. It i* custoimary with some firm® to supply ■with sacks, on the nnderatanilini; that i. they hoy the produce (giving fnll market rates) they will allow them the full price .charged for the sacks; and, indeed, whether supplied by the purchaser or produce or not, if they are new full ratea are allowed. If the purchaser be a merchant , iiw ia torn charges the miller the full price, and when empty they are marketable at a slight reduction in price- This being the ease. I fail to see how it can be fairly argued that the farmer is not recouped by the consumer, for of course the miller takes into account the loss he will sustain on the re-sale of the sacks when estimating the coat of the production of his flour, and through the baker it ■eventually reaches the consumer, and is therefore one of the moat general tax'- 3 possible, and not, as made out by Mr. Stead, a apecial or claa3 tax on the farmer.—Yours, &c., J- Q. B.