CHRISTCHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 38, 9 January 1885, Page 13

CHRISTCHURCH.

(From our own Co-respondent.)

Jan. (?, 1885. As becomes the people of the city which is the headquarters of the New Zealand Shipping Company, we are all very pleasingly exercised over the rapid voyages just made by the Tongariroand the Umpehu. The first of these vessels made the run home in 36 days 20 hours ; the second made the rim out in 41 days 3 hours, actual steaming. This looks well for the mail contiac f . which stipulates for a speed of 42 days home and 45 clays out, with a bonus of £5 for every hour saved. Had the Ruapehu been miming uuder contract sue would have earned a bonus of £600, and the Tongariro would similarly have earned about £360— at the rate between them of nearly £1000 a trip, or £13,000 a year. If the ships keep up this rate of steaming, they will make as much by the bonus as by the postage. The ships and their performances are naturally in everybody's mouth. There are wise men who will have it that their speed is tearing them to pit ces, not forgetting to add that they were very rapidly put toget her : and there are wise men who insist that the history of the great Atlantic liners is a history uf great speeds maintained with great safety. To 1 this the wise men of the first division reply that the Atlantic liners do not steam so many days continuously as the long voyage direct steamers in the New Zealand line. The obvious retort is' that ships are not like animals, rt quiring rest to develop recovering frames. While the wise men talk, each after his fashion, the ships fill to overflowing ; their passengers and freighters speak well of them, aud those who are b«hind the scenes say that the people who are most pleased with them are the directors who, in company with the manager con the accounts of each voyage, and smilingly nod their heads over balances large and ou the riijbt side. Add to this that the Company has got out of its difficulties, and' you will have a fair t notion of what its position is. A few months ajio, it was an open secret the shoe pinched considerably, but by careful management of financing, the Company's affairs have bien made quite comfortable. There are people who are critical, as well as knowiug in the matter of shipping accommodation, who declare th it the steamers of the Shaw, Savill. Albion line are better designed f r the comfort'and convenience of their passengers. It may be so ; the great difference of opinion is as to the locality of the saloon— one set of critics preferring it to be amidships, and 'generally, therefore, to windward of the engines, while the other bet sticks to the old-f asbioned idea that the poop is necessarily the ss a .at of pleasure and grandeur. All I know about the matter is that nearly all the passengers I have seen are quite satisfied, even euthusiasric about the New Zealand Company's vessels. Once there was an unpleasantness about one of their icaptains, but we do not hear much of that now.

Ihave justj ust heard a thing which in these days of comraarcial.morality weighs like lead on the best insti ncrs of human nature. The Grain Agency Co. staitsd three years ago by buying the business of Messis Stead and Cunyiigham, then trading as grain merchants, doinar a large business, each on his own account. For years, tbe succet-s of these gentlemen had been the theme of general admiration. Their energy, their boldness, their prudence, the gre.it scale of their operations — of all these things people never wearied of talking. When it was known that they had joined together and sold their business at a high figure, the laudations reached their climax. Men said it was the height of wisdom to sell out when the grain trade had reached its limit of profit. Messrs,

Stead snd Cnnyngham were popularly supposed to have performed tbe not unfrequent feat of realising, at the expense of the simple and the confiding a business which could not, under existing circumstances, hops to s^e any more good days. As for tbe guarantee of percentage they gave for three years, that was admired as a judicious stroke of the policy, which deals in sprats and mackerels. Now the three years are over, and the business has not paid any dividends. The world has baen shrugging its shoulders, declaring that the wily sellers (one of them acting as manager io the Colony, the other as consulting director in London), having paid their guarantee, were chuckling over the bargain which brought a time of loss on to the shoulders of their successors. The honourable truth has come out. Messrs. Stead and Ounnyngham have not ouly paid' their guarantee, but they have s*ved the Company from losses by paying £50,000 in solid cash out of their pockets, over and above, not a f cactiou of which were they legally liable for. As the Company has nor, paid dividends.- there is considerable discontent about tbe whole matter, people even going so far as to talk pointedly of the lucky vendors and their mysterious arrangements. What tlw mysteries really covered should be made known widely, and as wide.y appreciated.

Railway rates having been reduced, the benefit to the farmer whose nearest railway station is not less than 16 miles out, is just a half-penny a bushel. Some of tbem growl and say that it won't enable them to grow corn ; but thty wouid probably growl at any* thing. Many prices have been named in many years as the lowest limit below whijh corn could not be grown profitably. But corn has been grown profitably year after year. There are farmers on the plains now who seem fairly satisfied (if the agriculturist ever is satisfied) with the prospect of growing corn, and are growing it. It is a fact, however, that the area in corn is sensibly less than it was last year. The laud lying out of cultivation has been devoted to the stock trade, i.c,, the trade ia frozen mutton. It is the old, old story of many lands — wool and meat, paying better than corn, agriculture languished ; men and women came to be regarded as encumbrances • when the power was with men of ferocious minds and a badttle, the human beings were thrust out. Sagacious observers are not wanting who fear a similar result, or say theyjfear it. It is perhaps only a siga of the times, when things are dull, men's thoughts are dull. True it is, however, that one of these mea fa man of considerable experience," whose avocations take him among the crops every year), told me a few days ago that in one district (Methren) the substitution of grass this year for corn startled him. "If this goes on,' he a ked, "what will become of the woikers. the ironfounders, the implement-makers, the miners, of all whj live by supplying the wants of population and- the requirements of agriculture? " Let us hope the price of com will mend the dismal prospect by rising, or m.iybe the price of frozen muttou will do that by falling.

Government having refused the Akaroa request for a life-boat, and ve-y properly, for if one place is given a life-boat everyplace will a»k and •• bring pressure,' 1 the idea has been moote 1 of a national life-boat institution for New Zealand. That is one of the very beat ideas we have ever had ventilated here. It strikes the notes of selfreliauce and self-respect, which in these tunes of servile dependence on governments, sound uncommonly faint. Unless we take thought wo hhall become a spoon-fed people, as somebody said ouce, or ought to have said, I really loiget which.