GOSSIPPY NOTES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 106, 24 July 1877, Page 3

GOSSIPPY NOTES.

[JFROM OUR CHRISTCHUHCn GOSSIP.]

I see some members of the Chamber of Commerce are at loggerheads re the railway tariff. The millers think themselves ill-used and not fairly done Of a surety, it seems a one-sided affair, and most unreasonable, that the manufacturing interests are to be placed on a different footing to the grain buyer, and that flour and bran should be charged at higher rates than grain when in trausit for the merchant. There appears in one of the morning papers, an answer from a much respected member of this community, to some remarks made at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, by one who deems himself the creme de la creme of mercantile circles. A few such homethriists, will, I trust, help to steady this self-opinionated member of our community, and cause him to clothe his ideas on future occasions in more befitting language.. I note also that membero have made their way northwards. Like wild geese— they are birds of passage. Let us hope their cackling will lead to something beneficial. I reckon the Separationißts will have gained an accession to their ranks, from what hAs transpired since their last sitting. Many are, no doubt, beginning to feel rather anxious, now that they find they have voted away their privileges without securing an equivalent. There is a stir amongst the members of the Harbor Trust at Timaru. They do not seem to place much confidence in their Engineer. Some indeed, are beginning to think it would not bo acting wisely to pitch their money into the sea, and are looking about for other ways of appropriation for the £100,000. This shows a glimmer of uncommon sense, which I wonder did not beam out long before in-such an enlightened and patriotic community. I hope the Timaru people will not think I am libelling them in this latter remark. If Government were to initiate surveys, and endeavour to utilise harbours already formed by nature, instead of voting for what is next to an impossibility. 1 think I know of one place that would not be long overlooked, and which must, ere long, be deemed of such importance, that half-a-million will not be considered ill-spent in making ft available for the whole of the countiy south of the Bakaia. I would especially call your attention to the late scene at the Police Court, Port Chalmers. I fancy that member, who has gone northwards to his duties, and his chere amie, must feel small, and-will, or should, get the. cold'shoulder from his Confreres. It will be a fitting set-off against the warning he richly deserved, and received when leaving.

Dryasdust.