The Globe. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1876.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 589, 9 May 1876, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1876.

The Chamber of Commerce of Hobart Town, in the decaying colony of Tasmania, appears by a report of a meeting of its members, published in the Mercury of the 21st ultimo, to have seriously discussed, among other matters, the questionable commercial morality—so long practised by shippers to New Zealand —of defrauding their customers by falsely representing each bundle of shingles exported, as containing its full quantity of 100, One speaker avers that he has “ bad “ several complaints from New Zealand “ that the bundles of shingles sent “ there, supposed to contain a 100, “ only had eighty-three,” and that out of two million shingles exported the previous mouth, “ the bundles only “ averaged about ninety.” Another speaker, a Mr. Belbin, who happens curiously enough to be the largest local shipper of the article to Lyttelton, says plainly “ the colony (Tasmania) was “ getting into disgrace everywhere.” One would think that shippers of this class have the remedy in their own hands, and when invoicing a cargo of shingles would charge only for the actual quantity put on board. We have referred to this subject because a large percentage of the shipments from Hobart Town to this colony is made to Canterbury, and so the fraudulent practices of the shippers finally find victims in every buyer here who requires shingles for roofing. We had hoped that the tricky habits of our neighbours had long ago been grown out of, and that after losing their reputation in the matter of backed-off palings, undersized timber, rotten hay, and other abominations, they would have been cured of the commercial dishonesty for which they were at one time so notorious.