The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1887.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1649, 30 August 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1887.

At the annual meeting of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, President Mr John Cooke, the General Manager ot the New Zealund Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, m moving the adoption of the report took occasion to review various topics of general interest to the commercial community, and m doing so localised his remarks as far as it was possible to do so. In comparing our commercial position at the present time with that we occupied r a year ago, he submitted a table of the relative values of our principal natural products then and now. This table is very instructive showing as it does at a glance what articles have improved and what have declined m value during the twelve months. We are sorry to notice that while only three articles — barley, cocksfoot and wool show improved value — a great majority have decreased very materially. Wheat shows a diminished value to the extent of od ; oats, fdj potatoes, 15s per ton; flour, 20s j Butter, id ; cheese, 26. ; ryegrass, is 8d Sheep are stationary, but cattle exhibit a falling off of 9s per ioolbs; wool stands at a halfpenny better while tallow shows a decrease of 5 s and frozen mutton id a lb. The most serious amount represented by the reduction is m frozen meat, but this is more than made up by the increased value of wool. With such great depreciation m value we cannot wonder that trade is not very buoyant or active. As the President observed M the spending power of the producter being seriously curtailed and nothing but the natural increase of population having taken place thegeneral trader and manufacturer experience restricted demand for their wares and they m turn are forced to economise alike m their domestic and business concerns." One would imagine from the foregoing that it would be futile to look for any "silver lining" to this dark cloud of depreciation m values of our staple of exports. Nearly every item m the table wears a somibre mantie. There is only one ray of comfort that we can discover m perusing the President's remarks. It is this that, while as a rule prices have fallen, production has increased m afar greater ratio. This is noticeably the case with regard to wool, and m the case of Canterbury particularly so. The increase m the exports of wool is remarkable, and Canterbury has at length practically overtaken Otago, which fora long time held the premier position. The total quantity exported has risen from i4,4i0,0001bs m 1881 to 27,516,601^3 m 1886 for Canterbury, the corresponding figures for Otago being 21,898,670 lbs and 37,528,816. There is another cheering fact; while wool has so greatly increased m spite of the half million sheep slaughtered for export every year, from all parts of this island reports go to show that the growing clip this season will be vtry heavy.