Commercial.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2710, 24 October 1871, Page 2

Commercial.

The amount of revenue received at the Cus tom-house on goods cleared for consumption to-day, was £555 Os 4d, The plant of the Dunedin Gasworks and the lease of the property on which it is erected were submitted to public auction to-day at the rooms of Messrs Driver, Stewart, and Co,, in the presence of about thirty persons. Mr Driver acted as auctioneer. Mr Cook, solicitor to the debenture holders, by whom the sale was ordered, having read the conditions, the bidding was started at L 15,000 by Mr Larnach. and advanced by bids of LIOO, till L 16,500 was reached, when bids of LSO were taken. When L 17,800 was reached the bidding ceased, and the works were knocked down to Mr Larnacb, for Mr Hankey, at that figure. Being unable to ascertain by whom the bidding was carried on in opposition to M‘Larnacb, we must assume that it was, in the words of a person interested, by “ a Melbourne man.” The Liverpool Mail contains a full report of the annual meeting of the Royal Insurance Company on August 5, and devotes an editorial to it, in the course of which occur the following passages :—“ The provident precaution of both fire and life insurances cannot be too strongly advocated or too prominently brought before the public mind—especially since wide-spread discredit has been cast upon many insurance offices by late lamentable failures of unsound or mismanaged insurance offices like the Albert. In spite of all such unhappy shocks to public confidence, the balance-sheet of the Royal, produced at yesterday’s anniversary, abundantly proves that so far from any such doubt or distrust ever extending to influentially established and prudently managed offices like the Royal, its large life business is, on the contrary, steadily, satisfactorily, and most significantly increasing. Turning to the fire insurance branch, its recuperative productiveness is almost equally encouraging. Such a steady progression in both branches of insurance cannot fail to he signally satisfactory alike to the shareholders and to the public at large, inasmuch as it embodies practical proofs to the latter, and pleasantly tangible proof to the former, of the policy and prudence of its experienced directorate and management in wisely husbanding their reserve resources in times and seasons of unexampled prosperity, rather than courting temporary popularity by declaring and announcing exceptionally large and * sensational ’ dividends. Although not sl shareholder, yet as an insurer in the Royal for some quarter of a century—as a townsman like many more Liverpool men, justly proud of the marvellous success the Royal Insurance Company has already achieved in both hemispheres and in all countries—and, above all, as a journaliit in duty hound to publish far and wide the advantages to be derived from all really sound and thoroughly well-managed insurance companies like this —we not only sincerely rejoice that all their resolutions were passed unanimously, but that the wise counsels of their astute and experienced chairman, Mr C. Turner, M.P., prevailed so triumphantly as to ensure a perseverance in that prudent and most politic course which has resulted in such memorable and almost world-wide success.”