THE OTAGO WITNESS. Dunedin, Saturday, April 3. 1858.

Otago Witness, Issue 331, 3 April 1858, Page 4

THE OTAGO WITNESS. Dunedin, Saturday, April 3. 1858.

The December mail which we received at the latter end of the last week has brought us but little information that immediately concerns the Province. There appears to be no further information on the subject of the Steam Communication ; and we hear nothing from the Company which was represented by Mr. F. Gibbs which was said to have taken up an offer made by Mr. Sewell on behalf of New Zealand. We learn with surprise also that there is no communication, official or otherwise, from Mr. Adam our immigration ' agent; we are therefore entirely in the dark as to what course he is pursuing, or whether he is making arrangements for a further supply of immigrants to .this Province. We presume that ships are not to be expected at the rate which our contemporary alleged they would be sent. Although we disapproved of Mr. Adam's appointment, as not "being the right man, yet we must say that we were suprised to hear that he who must have been so well acquainted with the Province should be pursuing such a reckless course as our contemporary attributed to him.^ It is annoying, however, that he should neglect to advise the local government as to his course of action as it must keep matters in a state of uncertainty, injurious to the interests of the Province. The letters from the other agents are mere formal acknowledgments of the receipts of documents from Otago ; and from Messrs. Gladstone no information has been obtained, their communications being merely a request altering the arrangement of method of payment at this end to suit their convenience. There are some facts connected with the working of the social affairs of this and the neighbouring Provinces and colonies which j we cannot understand or find satisfactory j reasons for. The high price of every article of consumption in this Province com- , pared with its neighbours may no doubt be accounted for by the limited amount of >trade, but the variation is far more than such a circumstance ought to create. Again whilst wheat in Adelaide on the 27th February was at 6s. Id. to 6s. 4d. per bushel, fine flour was only £15 10s. per ton. In this Province, with wheat at the same price, flour has usually been £26 per ton. Defective milling may partly account for this, but again the variations are beyond all proportions. The next peculiarity however in our favour which we have to notice is, that whilst during the past year in this Province wheat has not been lower than 6s. per bushel, and has averaged somewhere about 7s. or 7s. 6d., in the neighbouring Province of Canterbury wheat was for a long time selling as. low as 4s. 6d. per bushel ; and \ve further observe in ,'the " Lyttelton Times" some remarks upon thjc harvest, which although stated to

be one of the finest for quality and quantity I they have yet had, that journal says, sales of wheat at 4s. 6d. per bushel have taken place, and that doubts were entertained whether, considering the high rate of wages, it would be advisable to reap the crops. We must say that we do not understand this state of things, and if our remarks and doubts should meet the eye of our contemporary, the"" Lyttelton Times," we should like to have an explanation. Does it arise from defective means of communication between the agricultural districts and the shipping port 1 If so, we always understood that we in Olago were under greater disadvantages in this respect ; but no farmer here has ever thought of selling wheat at such a price. Can it arise from too extended a system of credit, by which the Bank may accommodate the merchant — the merchant the farmer — and the latter be therefore obliged to bring his produce early to market 1 This certainly seems the most probable solution of the problem ; and if it should arise from the necessity of early sales, may not the system of the Land Regulations in the two Provinces have a very material affect in producing such different results ? Our neighbours have by their Land Regulations, in which there is no provision for Hundreds or commonage, prohibited the farmer from being a grazier except upon his own land, whilst in Otago most of the cultivators of land have a few head of cattle running upon the Hundreds, which are by no means the least profitable portion of their investment, and enable them by the sale of a head or two of cattle to avoid the necessity of throwing their grain upon a depressed market. We say again we are desirous of information from those who may be practically acquainted with the details in this matter, as it is very essential that we should be able to trace correctly cause and effect, especially at this moment, as we understand there is a strong feeling in some quarters that it is desirable to contract even the present Hundreds.

We are downright sick of the personal disputes with the editor of our contemporary. We wish he would put his puff in his own paper, and save us the nausea of noticing him. If he cannot be celebrated, he i.s contented to be notorious ; but we suppose it is part of a liberal commercial policy to keep your name before the public, whether it be to your credit or not. These remarks i are called forth by a letter vshich has lain by us for sometime, but which Mr. Macandrew is so very anxious to see in type, that, to escape any further importunity, we print it. It is supposed to be an answer to some remarks which we made upon a meeting of a few individuals at a publichouse in Dunedin, who had the presumption to call themselves a Public Meeting! and to pass resolutions as such upon the subject of immigration. We understand that the meeting, the getting up of which was attributed to Mr. Gallic, was really got up by Mr. Maeandrew, apparently with the main object of getting a servant lately in his employ to give him a puff, about an offer to lend the Government £50,000. We called it bombast, and hence the present letter. Our correspondent objects to tap-room defamation, though, we believe, he practises a little of it himself, but he does not object to tap-room eulogy when applied to himself ; he had better have been contented with the flattery he tliere obtained, and let the matter pass. As 'it is, he challenges us to show that the offer was bombast, and he must take the consequence. lstly, We have no proof that he was authorised by Messrs. Gladstone to make an offer of a sum of £50,000 to the Government. 2ndly, He must have known that the Government cannot legally accept such an offer, as their power of borrowing is limited to £35,000, £20,000 of which was for immigration, and was already partly raised ; therefore the offer was " bombast." 3rdly, When the Government supposed, from the rate at which immigrants were flowing in, that it would be more convenient to pay the half due at Otago of the contract price in debentures, instead of cash, to the extent of £1900, Mr. Maeandrew wanted a discount of 3 per cent., which he must have known the Government had no legal power to allow ; and therefore his offer amounted to a refusal, which was not likely to impress the Government with the idea that he was authorised to take up £50,000 worth of debentures.

It is not true that our correspondent has taken up £8000 worth of debentures on account of the contract. On the contrary, at the date of the last advices, but £5000 worth of debentures had been parted

with by Messrs. Auld and Crawford, and that before they were wholly due, as Mr. Reynolds, in London, represented that he found it inconvenient to dispose of the debentures in small amounts.

If our correspondent supposes that the Government were likely to place £50,000 worth of debentures in the hands of any commercial firm other than a well-known bank, with the hope of its disposing of them, he took the members of the Government to be much less of men of business than they are.

If he has any friends who want to buy Otago Government debentures in London, he will find that they can transact their business with the Union Bank of Australia there.

We think we were fully justified in calling the offer " bombast" ; but as we never mentioned who made it, we cannot be accused of dragging our correspondent before the public. He has dene it himself, we believe, simply as a puff.