COMMERCIAL.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XI, Issue 2864, 27 February 1877, Page 2

COMMERCIAL.

SYDNEY GTIAIN REPORT.

The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company report as follows, under date Sydney, 14fch February :— The market continues firm at advanced prices, in consequence of advices from ITew Zealand of the injury to the crops. .Buyers of Adelaide wheat at Gs l)d ; holders ask Fs. Two cargoes have arrived from San FianGisco, and ]>nrt sold at fis 4d. There are no recent sales of New Zealand wheat ; millers decline to purchase without seeing bulk. Two speculativo sales of New Zealand wheat are reported to have been made (before receipt, of tho news of the damage to your crops) at 5s 9d, afloat at Sydney, for 20,000 and 10,000 l.ushols respectively, but the completion of these contracts will probably depend upon tho quality and condition of the grain on arrival. Oats and barley —No inquiry.

Tho Melbourne Leader has tho folfowing :— The bank monopoly, winch was responsible for the long-sustained exorbitant rates of interest that have weighed so heavily upon the legitimate industries of the country, is at last broken by the withdrawal of the Bank of New South Wales from the {-rent combination. Vcw customer*, with large profits at the least risk, has been the rulo.and accommodation to the ordinary business tiador the f*xception, while .the discount charges have been so liifrh as to limit the operations of .trade upon the one hand, and to induce speculative operations attended \s itli much risk upon tho other. That the banks have made large profits is no matter, frr wonder, for whiJo the bank rate in England has, during the- last seven years, ruled at from 3 to 31- per cent, in Victoria it has Btood at from 0 to 9 per cent., the result being large dividends to absentee shareholders, in exact proportion as the screw was turned tightor upon the colonial trader. The coin and bullion held by the Victorian banks was in 1874 no less than 27 per cent, of their liabilities, or 23 per cent, more than the prudent limit which tho English banks assign to themselves ; and although largo advances have been made by colonial institutions during the past two years tor land purchases in a neighbouring colony, the deposits held by the local banks continue to be far in excess of what financial safety demands. The break-up, of the combination leaves the Bunk of New' South Wales in the position of having a plethora of money, to lend, and tho competition this must induco will no doubt lead to the extension of trading operations everywhere throughout the colony, and at the same time probably to tho initiation of many large schemes of a more or less speculative character.