The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2658, 24 August 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1871.

Two small experimental consignments from Otago to San Francisco appear

to have attracted favorable attention) therd.-. The newspapers do not give us 1 any idea of the market value of the j flax rope and beer sent by the Nevada, and any extension of trade must depend upon the account sales. It can hardly be doubted that San Francisco must prove a favorite market for both, and that the demand, once established, will be practically unlimited. The extensive and increasing trade of San Francisco

will absorb a great portion of ourflix fibre, if once its reputation is established as valuable for rope making, and no Colony in the Southern seas is so well adapted for brewing beer as this ; and especially Otago, The climate of Victoria is too warm for it, and no effort of the Legislature to protect the trade can ever establish it, for the best article producible thei’e, will bear no comparison with Otago beer. New South Wales and Queensland are out of the question for brewing, and even our own North Island does not possess the same advantage of climate that we do in the South. It will therefore depend much upon the enterprise of our manufacturers whether or not the oppoitunity afforded us of direct and immediate communication with San Francisco shall be used to advantage. It is an opening that ought not to be lost sight of, and seems to point to establishing a market for our produce which will render the insane attempt at excluding us from Victorian markets of little moment. The brewing trade is an instance of the rapid springing up of a practical industry, and, we dare say, protectionists would point to it in triumph as an instance of the success of their system. But that is only a very superficial view of the matter. The results of the high duty must he looked at a little closer, and it will he found in this, as in all other protected trades, circumstances not contemplated when it was established, alone can make it permanently profitable. The high duty on foreign beers left a wide margin between the price at which they could be imported and that at which they could be manufactured here : and the profit induced several persons to embark in the trade. The first effect has been the rapid exclusion of English beers, and the nearly complete extinction of the Customs revenue, previously derived from duties on its importation. The next effect has been to manufacture beer in such quantities as to induce great competition in this market amongst the brewers, and consequently to render necessary an export trade for our surplus produce, in order to lender the trade peimanently profitable. It is very fortunate, therefore, that such a wide field for supply is now opening out for us. We are not to calculate merely upon sending beers to San Francisco, although wo have no doubt that even there, when once their reputation is established, they will find a ready market : but there are interJ mediate places where British tastes are becoming acclimatised. In fact such a rapid development in the commerce of the Pacific could not have been conceived possible a few years ago, as seems now to be taking place. Then comes another and very important question : are the two industries we have alluded to, all that can supply material for profitable export to San Francisco! Arc there no mineral products, —is there no raw material we can send thither that will yield a profitable return 1 We must either consider ourselves in nice easy, comfortable circumstances, fully satisfied with 1 our present income and prospects, or we are slow to perceive what we have to send that will give us a profit. Looking at the returns of trade in other countries, we find New South Wales exporting coal thither in large quantities. Since we ourselves import from that Colony, that as a matter of course affords a very conclusive reason why at present we in Otago cannot compete with Newcastle. But with the knowledge that coal of good quality, easily get-at-able, exists in enormous quantities in the Province, and that markets arc everywhere opening up, affording ra-pidly-increasing demand, it seems somewhat suprising that means have not been devised of working our mines so cheaply as to enable us to share in the profits. Our contemporary yesterday made another effort to bring the San Francisco Service into discredit, and to enlist public sympathy in favor of sub sidising a line of steamers to Mel bourne. It would be a curious ey-posc-if the curtain could he raised, and the parties seen who guided the editorial pen. The private interests at work in antagonism to the interests of the Province would form a clue to the persistent opposition of that journal to the San Francisco Service, and explain much of the virulent spirit displayed towards Mr Vogel by more than one i representative of Otago. Could those parties who thus pull the editorial strings of the Daily Times be induced to take broader views of our immediate and prospective interests, and the extent to which their own are involved ' in them, instead of endeavoring to am-

line commercial intercourse to Victoria, whose every, effort is to restrict the trade of New Zealand by its protective system, they would use every effort to open up trade with San Francisco and the islands of the' Pacific. Surely we have only to rouse ourselves from our apathy, and utilise the means presented to us of trading, with the most rapidlyadvancing people in the world.