COMMERCIAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2274, 30 September 1897, Page 26

COMMERCIAL.

The railway revenue of the colony for the fourweekly period ended the 21st August wa3 £57,533 2s sd, and the expenditure £<>i,P6O 'Si 7d.

" Colonist," in tha Cape Tiinei>, writes : — "Now is the time for the people of South Africa to appeal to the meat merchants of New Zealand and Australia to open a brisk trade with the Cape. Let them send their own agents to start independent establishments in Capetown and Port Elizabeth to begin vrith, and they will not atone beuoftt themselves vastly, but the whole of South Africa, at the same tim-j I would suggest a small subscription list to defray the expense attending full caide advices to tbe mo3t influential Australian merchants, and that at once. We cinnot be satisfied with kc*l agents advertising Australian meat. We want tho Australians them«elves to com? to ihe Cape and open their own independent establishments. The whole country will buppurt them."

The remarks jnadtj by Mr Keith Rumoay, who represented tbe liquidator* of th« Colonial Bank at th-s meeting of J. G. Ward's creditors at Invercargill on the 22nd, were not correctly set out in our telegraphed report appearing elsewhere in this issue. Mr Ramsay said :If Mr Fraser was correctly reported, he (tho speaker) had been told he h»d said what was untrue, aud that h<» rl»iiied. 'Ilia report before the meeting [Mr \V, Brown's] spoke for its-lf. It disclosed tna*' there were several inaccuracies in Mr Ward's Untement furnished lo the creditor.*, and, further, that proper books and accounts had not been kept by him. It; also showed that sines 1&)2 Mr Wurd hod not been awa-e of his exact position — at any rate no balancd sheeWhad been prep tred by hiim'elf or furnished to him. It might be that he (the assignee) desired a fuither investigation of Mr Ward's afFaira— to go fmther back ihan the period covered by the report road at that meeting, but it was for the ass-ignee solely to decide. He had all the facts of the case before him as the result of the proceedings of the la^t two mtttincfi of creditors, and, speaking for tho liquidators of tbe Colonial Bank, they thought that all further responsibility as to any future pioceedinga should rest with the a^hignee, and they were quite content to let the matter remain in his bands.

A Melbourne oble says : "Tbe Kmu liay Kailway Compiny of Tasmania is successfully floated, and 150,000 shares have been issued. Four hundred weie applied f i rby New Zealand." The statement that 400 shaies were applied for by New Zealand U obviously a mistake, as 25,000 shares were applied for in Dutediu alono.