CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13839, 26 February 1909, Page 6

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

ENCOURAGING OUTLOOK. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Feb. 25. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce to-day, the chairman, Mr . Harkness, said that again they had been told that the financial stringency was a, passing cloud that would drift away into unknown regions under the genial sunshine of December 1908. Others had again asserted that in June 1909, the prospects would be bright, yet the . cloud remained with .tliis difference only—the lining had a darker hue. No platitudes, no optimism, however infectious would accomplish any marked change. What was needed was hard, honest.toil, combined with self-denial, and the curtailment of extravagance. The revival of the price of wool, a steady market for frozen meat, the phenomenal values of dairy produce, together with the prospect of an abundant-harvest, had saved the Dominion from a disaster which was serious to contemplate. In regard to .the leading lines, wool, frozen meat, and dairy produce, the outlook was decidedly encouraging. It only required a stead}', not a forced development, and the country would respond with no niggard hand if its people would but be trno to the best traditions of,their past history.