The Taranaki Herald.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8738, 26 March 1890, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald.

PUBLISHED DAILY. W K DNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1890.

Last year was one of great prosperity in tbe United States, which, like other parts of the world, is beginning to find that the long commercial depression is passing away. From papers received from New York we learn that the yield of crops reckoned in quantities, has considerably surpassed that of any preceding year, and if prices have been remarkably low at sea ports or centres of trade, that is largely because charges for transportation have also been unusually low. From thin it has resulted that products have been delivered to customers at very low cost, and that expenses of living have been low, while prices realised by farmers have been moderate — though actually higher than in some previous years of prosperity — but their expenses have also been rendered moderate owing to the aid of machinery and the cheapness of most of tbe articles they have to purchase. The transporters* and the middle men have charged much less than in other years, and have made gome eon-plaints. Yet the traffic has been so large tUa-t vuilroudtj report parsing*

larger than ever before, though large j expenses have left them only moderate profits. The iron industry has produced more by far than in any previous years, but at such moderate figures of cost that profits have not generally been exorbitant. The cotton industry has not quite held its maximum production, and yet has much j exceeded its output in previous years of * prosperity, while the leather and boot and shoe industries have probably surpassed all previous production, and yet have furnished products at the lowest prices ever known. If the woollen industry has been embarrassed, it must be remembered, says the New York Tribune, that tho low prices of clothing ha\*G been helpful to consumers, namely, to the whole people, and meanwhile the work cf this industry in pounds of wool manufactured or in yards of goods produced undoubtedly exceeds that of 1881 or 1882, the years of previous maximum prosperity in other branches. The building trades, if not quite as active as in one preceding year, have far surpassed their production in other years of prosperity. Tae distribution of wealth in the United States has also been far more favorable to tho producing class during 1881) than in other years of great prosperity. The workers have received but little more money, perhaps, but their money has purchased at least twenty per cent, more goods than in previous years of maximum prosperity. Froja this New York paper we loam that the aggregate of bank clearings outside of New York will probably exceed twenty thousand millions, against eighteen I thousand millions in 1888, and against less than fourteen thousand millions in 1881 or 1882. This does not accurately measure the growth of business, and yet affords a sure indication that the increase has been greater than the increase in populatian. Including New York, the clearings will exceed fifty-five thousand millions — an j amount surpassed only in 1881 and 1882, when wild speculation at New York made a difference of three thousand to four thousand millions in the aggregate. But another great difference exists. The general level of prices in the past year has been fully 20 per cent, below the level of 1881 or 1882, so that the quantity of products represented by payments then made through banks, if sold at the prices " of the past year, would not have called for payments of more than fifty thousand millions, speculation included. At the lowest possible estimate, the volume of business reckoned in quantities of articles must have increased fully 50 per cent, since 1880, the population having increased about 30 per cent. Next must be reckoned the important fact that, with prices, and therefore the cost of living, at least 20 per cent, lower than in 1881 and 1882, the wages of labour are on the whole higher. In some branches of employment this is not the fact, but reckoning all classes of labour with due regard to the number employed in each, the average must be at least 3 per cent, higher than in either of the years named, and 5 per cent, .higher than in 1880. From this it follows that the year 1889 may hereafter be reckoned as on the whole, the best yet known in results for the great body of the people of America.

The Mayor invites the burgesses to observe the afternoon of Tuesday and Wednesday next as ha'f-holidays. A notice of importance to cab and express drivers, and others who require licenses to carry on their business appears in another column. Thelocal Volunteers, so far, have received no invitation to attend the Easter Encampment to be held at Wellington. The company fully expected to attend this Encampment. Judge Puckey arrived by the Takapuna on Tuesday morning, for the purpose of holding a sitting of the Native Land Court here. The Commissioner of Crown Lands, who has been on a visit to the Dunedin Exhibition, returned home on Tuesday night. Mr E. Bamford, who is District Land Registrar at Napier, and who some years ago held the same position here, is at present in town on a visit. There were about fifty Maoris in town to-day (Wednesday) attending the Native Land Court sitting, which was opened by Judge Puckey. An accident happened on the South Road on Monday night, when Mr Sefton, who resides just beyond Oakura, got thrown from his horse, and lay stunned on the road. He was not discovered till Mr Dinglo's trap ran over him, and further injured him. As far as could be learned Mr Sefton's injuries are not serious. The Catholic Bishop of Auckland, Dr. Luck, was a passenger by s.s. Wanaka, en route for the North. During the steamer's stay His Lordship came up to New Plymouth and was the guest of the Rev. Father McKenna. Renshaw's unfermented and nonintoxicating ginger wine is a delicious beverage and tonic; nutritious, strengthening, stimulating, and invigorating ; suited for the robust in health as well as the feeble. The natives finding that the " strong arm of the law" in Hawera county is too much for them in the matter of their attempts to evade payment of the dog tax, says the Star, are trying another resource. They are sending their unregistered dogs to Parihaka, where they are under the tegis of Te Whiti, and where the Taianaki county authorities are not so active. In one respect the effect is not evil. The dogs are got rid of, and the settlers in this county benefit ; what the Taranaki coanty settlers think remains to be seen. In the course of a leading article on the land question, thoDuncdin Evening Herald writes : — We do not believe that there is a single solvent company in New Zealand at the present moment holding land if their landed properties were valued at the values obtainable for them in open market. If the fiat of the Legislature went forth that every acre of land held by a company must be sold within, say, three years — we do not mean by a forced sale, but with ample moans for realisation — the result would be that almost every land and loan company would have to go into liquidation ; and there is no doubt until this most desirable result be obtained, New Zealand will never prosper. Until the fair lands of Otago are unlocked Oamaru must remain litHe more than a fishing village and Invercargill, the city of future brilliant prospects, will remain in its i present state of stagnation. Nowhere probably in New Zealand are tho ills caused by corporate bodies more manifest than on the Southland Plains. There would bo room for literally millions there, if it wore not that the large land companies have obtained a monopoly. Politicians often talk glibly enough about encouraging settlement upon the Ci own lands of the colony, but the fact is too often forgotten that in the Sonth Island at any rate the eyes of the country have been everywhere picked out by the companies. Housewives who delight to make delicious and wholesome pastry for their husbands and bairns should be sure to use Rent-haw's perfected baking powder, for by its übo indigestion. & c WU y be provefltQd.j;