CAPE LETTER.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 793, 18 May 1905, Page 26

CAPE LETTER.

■■ (London “ L.V. Gazette. ) Capetown, February 22. Very successful agricultural shows have lately been held at Robertson and Worcester. The entries have been far in ex •cess in number to those of any previous exhibitions held in those places. Ihe principal exhibition of the season is, of course, the Western Province Show, whicn opens to-day at the Rosebank Grounds, the large enclosure presented to the I eninflula by Mr Rhodes. Fruit and wine necessarily take up their fair share on the exhibition stalls, for, as a prominent Cape politician remarked recently, “This country is an agricultural country, or it is nothing.” He might have gone further, and said that it should be above all a fruit and wine producing country. The awards to farmers will scarcely interest your readers. The awards to merchants seem pretty evenly divided up amongst our leading firms. Details are best left over for my next, when the various shows can be discussed in one group, ihe Western Province Show being the principal agricultural gathering in South Africa, will form the chief topic of my next letter, especially when 1 give a description side by side with a description I have lately come across of the first agricultural show held in this country just half a century sgo. Of a multitude of things I have to write about, the most important concerns a meeting at the Government Vine Farm, Constantia, of the farmers in that important district. The chairman, Mr John Versfield, said that very few of them had been able to sell last season’s wine, and vert wine which would not . fetch more than £3 per leaguer was realising at the bottle stores something like £l9 per leaguer. Now —£3 per leaguer is less than ; one-penny per bottle. £lO per leaguer is about threepence per bottle, consequently a wine sold at eighteen pence was ietch- * ing about £75 per leaguer. Last year he coold get £2O per leaguer for his brandy; this year only £ll. Mr A. Lev oved

this up by saying that last year he got £lO for wine which now only fetched £l. The usual deputation to the Government was carried. Whilst admitting the bad condition of trade from the wine-farmer s point of view, the mercha.nts must feel inclined to protest against one-sided statements of this description. Grantee that merchants and retailers are reaping the benefit of low prices, they are scarcely the plunderers the farmers would make them appear. When to the original cost you add risk in storage, capital locked up, expense of bottling and labelling, icn of retail stores, wages to employees, E;dvertising, and the general risks of tra e, the retailer’s bread is not buttered on both sides, nor is too much sugar laid on the top of the butter. For some time past the * ,'anadian and South African Governments been, negotiating for an interchange oi ducts on 'a favoured-nation basis. Ine preferential tariff hitherto prevailing has been of more use to Cana.la than it'has to the Cape, this country .'.sporting little that the productive Domi mon wanteo to import. Not that it has been of m. use to the consumer in South Africa, ,&< me of our food imports', cheise, for instance, being now obtainable at 25 per cent, less than it formerly cost. But whilst we have taken more of Canada s productions. at a saving it is true to ourselves, we have sold Canada little or nothing in return. The favoured tariff on . wines scarcely touched the Cape article, as_tliey are strong in alcohol. Nor can I say that the more favourable duties Canada is prepared to levy on Cape wines will benefit this country much. Preferential treatment has been extended to all sparkling Cape wines, but we prepare very, small quantities of such. The admissable strength ol Cape wine at preferential duties has been increased. Thi? latter is certainly a valuable concession if our wine farmers will try to produce wines which Canada will have at any price. Ine former limit of strength for wine at the reduced duty was that it should not contain more than 25 per cent, of proof spirit. This has now been raised to 40 per cent., which should surely include all Cape liquor that can fairly be called wine. Wine of that strength should stand storage and carriage, and if the Cape wine farmer does not under such ta vourable conditions try to make and export a palatable drink the world at large

wiil extend him very little sympathy. Most people’s views in this country are apt to take a pessimistic turn. Me are so used to non-fulfilment that our stock ol Good Hope runs short. Cape wines in Canada will now have a chance of competing with the wines of Spain and I oitugal without light wines of France, the country towards which the Canadians are most friendly disposed. Our wine trade certainly wants some fillip to awaken it. As I pointed out a few years back, the productiveness of Cape vineyards is simply marvellous in point of quantity. In days gone by Cape wine had a name for quality. If the figures in a recent article in. the “Cape Times ’ are correct the colony exported in 1859 wines to 'the extent of £153,000, yet sixteen .years later it had dropped to £14,000. The present export is not given, and the blue-books containing the information are not at my hand. Bejonda.iew Christmas hampers, would it be going too far to say that the present export from the Cape to England or anywhere else out of Africa would not afford a eßritish workman the material for a “Saturday to Alonday drunk” ? Of miscellaneous items 1 must not omit the third cricket match at the Exhibition between a team of exhibitors and a team of licensed victuallers. Alas! that I must report it. The LA . team weie again beaten, and beaten badly by 150 runs to 89, notwithstanding that the redoubtable Pentelow played for the LA . s—this time he only made four runs, sixty-three of the remainder were made by one man F Sewell, not out. Draw the curtain! Hospital Day at the Exhibition was a great success. It was held on Thuisdaj, February 9, when the takings amounted to about £BOO. There was, as might have been expected, a great falling off next day. when tne takings only amounted to £33. Eight hundred may not sound big in English, especially in London, ears, but to Capetown it represents a rich and substantial increment to the funds a£ our few charitable institutions. All said and done, our population is only that of a small English town, a mere Parliamentary Division of Britain’s great Metropolis, but distance lends at least magnification to its importance —a thing which distance seldom does to the view, whatever enchantment it provides, Mr G. R. Odium, of the Rhodesian Department of Agriculture, has recentlv is-

sued a report on information gained in’ the course of 35,000 miles of travel in the United States to study tobacco culture, and his handbook on the subject is published by the British South Africa Company. The book should prove useful, for I have long affirmed that 1 prefer Cape tobacco to American. Bad taste, did you say? Call it so if you will, but Transvaal tobacco is stored and .a heavy duty paid by at least one est End tobacconist. 1 have received presents of tobacco from friends in Pondoland which I havepreferred to Transvaal. My latest sampling experiment comes from Alice (a village, please, not a lady, if you should happen to ask ‘AVhere Art Thou? ’), and I consider it good. This country may do a large cultivation in tobacco yet, but as a friend remarks, “Ihe worst about this blooming land is that it is all Good. Hope, and stops short at the blooming Hope!” A Merry Family (capital letters, please) must be the Town Council of Johannesburg. On January 25 they moved a resolution to permit licensed victuallers to open their premises on municipal elecdays. A fortnight afterwards they rescinded the resolution. “-E dunno where ’e are.” There must after all be something good and neat about these modern music-hall ditties, or they would not beso apt for quotation. I beg now to present you with an arrow borrowed from the armoury of the' enemy. The chief mouthpiece of the Temperance Party here has drawn attention, special attention, to the transfer of the license of the Red Lion Hotel in the Dock Road. £6OOO was said to be the sum for which the building was bought with license attached. After the transfer the building only fetched £7OO, so that thevalue of the license alone was over five thousand. Attention to such statistics may make a licensee careful as to the conduct of his business; so far so good, and there is no occasion to quarrel over that, for does anyone want to keep a disreputable house? But can the TemperanceParty wonder at or take umbrage at all efforts to “rob us of the value of a carefully built up and well-conducted business ? Robbery !! ! A strong word; what else can you term the wholesale confiscation of a business and goodwill. The same intemperate temperance enthusiast referred to above has also been airing his views regarding e,ub licenses.