OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLVIII, Issue 12364, 2 December 1904, Page 2

OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

(From Our Own Correspondent). WELLINGTON, November 29. The Shops Act ia stiill Avith usfc. It has broken down where it was never intended to stand. It is to be tried aga.ni where ib never weui suspected to be mfail'lib'^—which is a ridd'Lng way to talk about a Acb of Parliament, but when an Act of Parliament) goes through its last phases like greased lightning, there is no other Avay of speaking about it. Ihe Magistrate's judgment .is a very good one; tx> good that one wonders how any one could possib.y have thought there was any compulsion on anyone to close up, in the absence of the Gazette definition oi the combined' districts. It is possible that if the Minister of Labour had been as expedit.O'iie in doing his duty of .gazettng. as the Act was m getting itseL-f empowered to order him to do it things would have been ail .right for the Act. As it is, the Magistrate seems to have no doubt that the gazetting will o-ive the n©ces:ary life to the third <J.'aus3. But as very good lawyers seem to think that there is no such virtue in gazetting, we shall have another test case. Whatever happens the small shopkeeper will continue to be discontented. He will not threaten, the Minister s lite like'tho Auckland crank cl:d, but ho wivl not bo soothed by the reflection that a bad ilaw has put it into the power of •any crank to become h'.a mouthpiece. Shipping affairs aa-e in the ascendant just now, as they ought to be at a time when some ships-axe obliged to go ott to other countries seeking the Loading they cannot get as fast as they are.accustomed to in th's. First, the Aew Zealand Shipping Company took the floor with a modest dividend and a^'efereaicss to its first ventures, which old colonists found moving enough. For they remembered we.l the day when the company was started to break down the monopoly of the Shaw, Savi'Jl combine, of the early seventies. Right AvelL they did it, and the financial results were so o-ood that every one concerned ought to have been ready to approve any move to keep the lead. But when the plunge was proposed into steam, the hurly burly oontiequent drove a mass of the shareholders out of the ship. The plunge was nearly fataL but iiho results now are good enough to ploasa any reasonable person. At the same timo there is a shlp'pinfr ring in tho colony. It is fainy reasonable, but it must not repeat the experience of its late indifference to the extension of the trade which satisfied them better than ib suited their patrons) and producers. ...... The Union Company have reminded us during the week hoaV profitable steam can be made to those who make a judicious use of i;t. Some of us remember this great sh;ip— a small boat. She used to belong to on© "Johnny Jones," and her beat Avas Port Chalmers to Dunedin, with passengers and luggage, before the days of the raifhvay, which made tfuch fine profits for the Hon. Richard Oliver and his companions in good fortuue. Then the little dwarf became the Harbour Company, and its secretary Avas the debonnaii' liittle man lcnown about tho southern capital in thos-3 days as, ■"Jimmio Mi.Vs," confidential secretary of the said financial magnate. The magna^a •disappeared in due course, and the ■ company *ima.torialu'ed. One day a steamer of theirs appeared off Oamaru, in the pre breakwater days. There Avas a sensation and a phophecy. The first st&p :in the aocomplishment: of the latter was the purchase of the McMekanBlackwood boats, which gave the company the command of the sea;. It Avas then calLed tlie Union Company. Since them, there have been many steps in further fulfillment of tho saying of the old Otago seer. The last of these Avas made two days ago by the reading of the last annuai report of the company, Which disclosed an eight per .cent, dividend on! a capital of £600,000, and'.a-two p&r cent, bonus (an aggregate of £60,----000 in the pockets of tho shareholders), together Avith the addition of a trifle of £iOO,OOO to the reserve fund. Let us ■admire the gCory .of the green and red. 1 hear a growl in travelling circles' which g^.ys—-"a-nd also let ua Qiave no more over-croAA7ding, no mo.ro smalll boats, no more enormous fares.''

Much talk there -is of the Liverpool Exhibition in official circles, which bristtea w.lth admiration, at the enterprise of the Government. But if the Government had had real enterprise, th'&y would have arranged a decent repre&entatio.n at tho St. Loir's Show, which-is far greater than anything tjhat Liverpool can ever hope to achieve."" For one thing, our wool manufacturers WouCd have been serving a select trade at any price they liked to name. That 'was diear to anyone who saw the few ,g00d.3 handled and haard tha enoomiuiins. Since- the last rise im-wo-al, which was du-e to the presenoa of American buy-ei-s ,in force, this conclusion, has been i-eiiiforcad. Tlie project of an international exhibition at Ghristchurch -is, as everyone admits that I have spoken with on the subject, good, but everybody adds that every argument in favour of Christ-church we"ghed four times aa heavily for St. Louis. We seem to havo begun by refusing to go to the large mountain, and to* be .about to end bs' setting up a molehill'in our'midst, and saying the mountain has come to us.

Tho wholesale pateTifc medioin© ven-dors-of this place are iin a state of chaotic fury. The papers lia^-a pormiittcd. correspondents to' spaak ,•>their minds freely about some of the sources of their p:iofits, and they aro afraxl that these writer;:; wLli find the puMiic a-s credulous about tiia demerits of the drugs ac they haro found them about tho merits. They ■ are afraid because they know their publiie. Divers pers-Oitts are, I hear, in dsoager. For the rest., the .suggestion is approved which has been made to the MinLst-o rthat it.woxiid protect the pubLic just as v.© 1 to accept confidential desoniptions of the patent medicines, as to blaze thorn abroad on the boxes>. At .tlie'same tiimo, there are many patents which no one is ever ,LkeSy to get a descriptJcn of from their asttvto proprietevs. . >v

Financial circles declare thab tbo last loans of PariiamfMit must, not, con not, sfliali nob, ought not, will not be raised ■ locajHy: There is much to bo said for this contention: (1) Fivo millions sterling 'taken ■out of the local market in four years by tbo Treasury and the local bode; have exhausted tbo supply des- '{':- .<-■■ :: i" local wants. (2) Th® pix>of is "■■t.:ivj bho budding societies hero in Wellington, at all events, have raided tbsir tales ■■for:'<l&osHs djulng tlie -\vx>ek :to Mr, and a balf. () me banks aro in all probab-i-lity -going to do the same ; goiaig, in .fact, to folilow tbo lead of the Building Societies, as they did the last timo tbay rais&d tbo ratas: (4) The reason m that the cities of Dunedin, Qhriiitchurch, and Wellington have been borrowing heavily over (ho counter at four and a-half, at viat&s far longer tha.n. tbo otilers can offei'. (5) With the local rate brouglit up tliiis to four and a-half, it will not pay the Government to seek '■supplii&'i in th a local market any I'onger. (Q)Aa West Australia has just assumed a. )k>an in the London -market, .at* .a good' price—;a.t four and a-hn!f —N>9w Zealand may depend upon got ting ih® (same ■term's. , There you Lave tbo thing in a nutshell, from the point c-f view of the ilooa-1 financier. rl'he "New Zealand Times'' opened t-liis qu-p-stiio-n on Hn-tiir-day la v.t. and th^a (^p^n'on prov:iils that" tbe> article wa« si- pilot, hal'-oon -m Tx-haM" of tlic Government. (