TELEGRAPHIC.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 968, 2 August 1877, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC.

INTERPROYINCIAL. (_PEB PEESS AGENCY.] Railway Matters in Otago. Dunedin, August 2. Messrs Reeves and Roberts have been appointed a deputation to wait on the Grovernmeut at Wellington re the railways. The Customs revenue for last month amounted to £31,390, that for the corresponding month of last year was £28,845. One hundred and thirty-two applications have been received for work at Balclutha. The men who have gone out complain that they cannot get work or credit from the storekeepers. The Grovernment has reduced the goods tariff on the Dunedin and Port Chalmers line, the general manager having received the following telegram yesterday—“ You are authorised to carry ships goods from Port Chalmers to Dunedin as class C, which makes the rate os 2d per ton. — J. P. Maxwell.” Tins order places the rates lower than they were before the recent alteration. The new tariff will put the whole of the Otago railway lines on a very satisfactory footing, being lower than heretofore. The only exception related to shipping, and that has now been remedied. A large number of shares in excess of the limit fixed by the provisional directors for registering the company have been applied for in Griithrio and Larnach’s New Zealand Timber and Woodware Factories (Limited). The company is therefore successfully floated. Local Option Bill. Wellington, August 2. A numerously attended public meeting was held here last evening to discuss the principles of Mr Fox’s Local Option Bill. The following resolutions were carried, “That in the opinion of this meeting a very large porportion of the vice, crime, disease, poverty, and other social evils which exist in this colony are the direct results of the traffic in and the '’sing of alcoholic beverages,” “ That no system of laws has yet been effectual for the prevention of those evils, to prevent which they were enacted, and that therefore a change is necessary both in the principle and method of the laws dealing with the liquor trade.” “ That the principle embodied in the Local Option Bill is equitable, practicable, and likely to afford the public relief from many of the evils arising from the consumption of intoxicating liquors.”