"INVERCARGILL TIMES" OFFICE.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 82, 18 August 1863, Page 2

"INVERCARGILL TIMES" OFFICE.

Monday Evening,

To homo shippers acquainted with the Canadian trade, an inactive season was recognised, and quotations for some months in the year would have been laughed nt; but shippers to the colonies in tho Southern Ocean have been used to a difforont state of things. Australia is open all the year round for business operations; and so is New Zealand in her Northern Provinces. We therefore feel ourselves somewhat singular in having month after month to report the statement that winter in our rather higher latitudos must necessarily be a season of inaction ; but when it becomes known that our summer creeks of a few inches in depth are in winter roaring torrents, into which a loaded dray dnve not enter, and that our bush roads am positively dangerous for beusts of burthen, on account of the mud-holes among the tangled roots of the forest trees, our expectant friends in the mother country must bear with us when, for another issue, we withold quotations which would only be based on conjecture, for, of actual transactions during the past month, we have none to report of such a character as would be any guide to shippers. This season is generally admitted to have been one of the wettest seen in the Province since it became an abode of Europeans . but there are now indications of improvement in the weather, and we hope by next mail to announce a fair commencement of our spring trade. This report will, however, be to exporters from England more n guide to their operations for our next winter than for our summer trade, and wo cannot be too emphatic in urging extreme caution. For goods avriving here between the months of Juno and October it is impossible to promise a market ; and disappointment, increased by heavy charges for delivery and storage, to a certainty awaits the majority of those adventurers who thrust their consignments upon us at that season.