COMMERCIAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17533, 27 January 1919, Page 4

COMMERCIAL.

Daily Times Office, Saturday morning. A parcel of Australian macaroni and vermicelli has "arrived on the markot, and is quoted at 7£d and 7Jd respectively. Eeckitt's cream tints, large sixes, arc again, available. Tho Mbano's consignment of fruit from the Islands included about COOO cases of bananas. Dimock's corned beef will ba available in a fortnight. Tho quotation is 21s 6d per dozen. Advice by cablegram from Melbourne states that bulk cornflour has advanced 60s per ton". Highlander unsweetened milk is again on the market. Local millers cannot supply all the orders for pearl barley, and merchants aro now awaiting shipments from Australia. Sulphur is still in very short supply. Small lots aro being quoted at 5d per lb. A leading Californian firm, reporting under clato December 1, states that "the embargoes for shipment from the country on manufactured articles containing steel, copper, rubber, otc, havo in most instances been entirely lifted, and licenses will be granted freely for the shipment of theso commodities. It is necessary, however, to continue sending enormous quantities of foodstuffs to Europe, for it will take from six months to a year far the troops to como home. It is also necessary to send thousands of tons of foodstuffs to the liberated populations of Belgium, Northern France, Serbia, Rumania, and other States, for tho food supplies of theso countries aro so low that millions of people will perish of starvation this winter unless supplies are sent to them at once. Therefore the restrictions on exportation for ordinary trade of som-o of the foodstuff articles will bo the last items to be removed from the conservation list. Tho embargo on tho exportation of fats, including cheese, butter, lard, and vegetable and olivo oil, has been rigidly tightened, and no licenses are being issued at the! present time. Similarly the embargo on coffee is being effectively followed.

"Many merchants have predicted that the prios of foodstuffs would decline at once on the cessation of hostilities, but the results of the last three weeks and a know» ledge of the actual supplies and the demand that must foe met from those supplies, all tend to disprove any such assumption. It will take at least a year, and possibly two years, for the foodstuff Btocks of the world to again become normal. Tho canned supplies of many articles, such as canned asparagus, fruits, salmon, etc., are so low that they will be completely exhausted long before .the new goods arrive."