COMMERCIAL.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 189, 9 March 1868, Page 2

COMMERCIAL.

Westtort Times Office, Saturday Evening. The total amount of duty collected at the port for the week ending 7th March, was £304 Os 7d, and the amount of export duty on gold was =C22G 13s lOd. We have little to notice either in import or other trade during the past week, and the Queensland diggings are making a slight difference in our population, so that trade must for the present remain inactive. In flour a rise is reported of nearly £2 a ton, and present quotations are—for Butterworth's brand :C23, and for Hart's, £25 ; there is, however, no great stock of the article in merchants, hands here. Brandies in case and bulk are exhibiting an upward tendency, and geneva is also scarce ; both these articles arc up in the Melbourne markets, but notwithstanding the demand here being nearly at a stand still, holders are firm. Potatoes are quoted at from £5 to £6 10s, though with a likelihood of an advance. In bottled ales nothing is moving. One or two auction sales have taken place during the week, but nothing of any note has changed hands. Mr Ferris's grocery stock, a bankruptcy sale, realised good prices. In cattle or sheep there is little or nothing moving. Retail prices of butchers' meat continue at old rates, though trade is very slack. The vegetable market is mainly supplied from our own gardens, which arc daily increasing in number, and bid fair next season to exclude all competition.

The Nelson Examiner of the sth instant says : —" To add to the present stagnation of trade in New Zealand, there is a danger of losing a considerable portion of our mining population—our largest consumers and taxpayers. A new goldfield in Queensland, near Maryborough, midway between Brisbane and Rockhampton, is attracting a large number of diggers from the neighbouring colonies, and the recent discovery there of a nugget weighing 1020 ounces, has induced a rush which is likely to prove serious to many of those who have betaken themselves to the spot, and so be felt as an evil by places from which population may be drawn. The accounts that have lately reached us from Maryborough hold our no inducements to miners to abandon claims they may be working on New Zealand or other goklfields, for (lie Queensland diggings. Of tho large body of miners now on the ground very few are making a living, while the climate is of tho most trying nature, and hundreds, probably thousands, will fall victims to ague and fever. Tho sudden rise iu the priec of (lour which took place in January, is likely to bo maintained throughout the year. The total wheat crop growth in this and the neighboring colonies during the last season will do little more than satisfy home requirements till another harvest, and no grain can be imported to interfere with the prices of home growers. Under such circumstances there is no prospect of seeing the prices of wheat and Hour fall materially below current rates.