The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, DEC. 4, 1894. THE STATE OF TRADE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 135, 4 December 1894, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, DEC. 4, 1894. THE STATE OF TRADE.

«. . The President of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, at the meeting of that body held yesterday, was not in a cheerful frame of mind when he gave his address. He ropeatcd, what was already well known by every business tnaa in the colony, that tho winter just passed was a record for depression for the whole trading community, wholesale and retail alike. He mentioned that unprecedented low prices ruled for products, which was

the first and most essential factor, showing that at last business men in the large centres are beginning to realise that the farmers and country settlers are the real authors of their prosperity, or the reverse. In time we may hope that the knowledge may also be acquired that it is a huge blunder to crush to the earth agriculturalists and pastoralists with excessive taxation to relieve people who live and have their being in the towns of a part of tbeir burdens. That, however, is by the way. The President — according to the telegraph report now before vs — was very outspoken on the subject of recent legislation, and attributed to it the want of confidence felt by private capitalists, and by those in trade. In this opinion we willingly concur. There appears to bo some doubt as to the bona Jules of those who send repor cs on the state of the wool market in Am H rica since the alteration of the tariff in that country, and a suggestion was made to the Chamber that a thorough test be made of the market "by the Government either purchasing a cargo of wool and exporting the same to Now York, or by arxanging with the growers and guaranteeing the latter London price on the day the wool was sold in America." What he meant by this is not very clear, but we think it is absurd to ask the Government to undertake a task which properly belongs to private enterprise. Possibly the President of the Chamber of Commerce, like everybody else in the colony, has become so inured to the grandmotherly care of the Government, that he thinks a little more in the same direction could do no harm if it did but little good, also, that if some— promised— good has been expected in the timber export trade by the action of the Agent General in London, acting under instructions from the Cabinet in the colony, equally — alleged —beneficial results might accrue in the case of wool in the American market. The main difficulty would be to get as good a man as Sir Westby Percival, but even that might be overcome. The rule is when business is depressed, enterprising men begin to cast about for new openings, and that is the case jufet now in New Zealand We can only hope, therefore, that notwithstanding the vexatious legis lation of the lasc three or four years complained of, which has helped so much to cripple trade and to smother speculation, better times may come when it will be no longer a crime for a man to be saving and industrious. We note, with regret, that the President had no very bright hopeß for the near future of commerce in the colony.