SEPARATION FROM A MIDDLE ISLAND POINT OF VIEW.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 231, 24 February 1865, Page 3

SEPARATION FROM A MIDDLE ISLAND POINT OF VIEW.

(From the Nelson Colonist.) It is evident that in the Middle Island is the great centre of commercial and trading power and, influence. The dealings of Southern merchants with traders in the North Island is much larger than many people- suppose,. We have heard of one house, the representative of which in ' one journey in the North Island lately, did businessto an amount of between £15,000 and £20,000. This is in a time of difficulty, with an intestine struggle unfinished. Interchange of commodities must prove beneficial to both islands ; and surplus stock in the South could be exchanged for produce raised in the North Island, if agriculture, at present crippled by the war, were once again in ■ full vigor and the North returned to its normal condition, enjoying the benefit of its extensive and-fertile soil. To such intercourse there is no drawback while the islands are one colony ; but Jet them become separate and distinct dependencies of the Crown, and there would spring up a host of obstacles which would certainly inflict serious injury on the trade of each island with the other. Separate interests would arise, and more or leas of alienation would follow. The first of these obstacles would be the different duties levied in either island, each acting independently of the other. Merchants shipping goods in small parcels, which is a daily occurrence at present between the two islands, would have to pay a double duty, because no drawback from the Customs is allowed where the amount of duty payable to the Crown is under £lO. In not a few eases tins would absorb wbat would be a fair remunerative profit to the wholesale dealer. There are numerous instances of merchants having establishments in both islands, by which they are enabled promptly and without difficult to transfer goods at auy time to meet the state of the markets. Jfut place double and different duties as a barrier, and trade will be very much crippled. Customs duties are always injurious to trade, and the experience of traders at home abundantly shows that even small duties operate so as to injure the interchange of commodities to a degree far greater than those who have not studied the subject imagine. One of the best evidences of this is to be found in the. immense increase in the trade between France and England since the Treaty of Commerce came into operation. Many of the duties on both sides were nearly prohibitive; but numerous others were comparatively small, yet email-though the latter were, they operated so as greatly to limit Jhe trade. Figures will best show this difference. The value of the exports to France from Great Britain in 1859, the year before the Treaty of Commerce came into operation, amounted to a little over nine and a-half millions sterling; and a marked decrease was then taking place, as compared with previous years. In 1863 the exports of British goods to France were twenty-four millions in value ! This was clue entirely to the ■reduction of duties effected by the commercial treaty.' - The law of trade which operated regarding British exports to Franco would proportionally, but in an inverse ratio, influence the commercial intercourse in these islands, restrict trade, and alienate those whoso interest it is to continue united.

This is but one point of many; but it offers an argument which we have not seen touched by any of the journals which advocate either side of thequestion. Wo believe that to separate is to promote weakness, 'induce division, disagreement, and less. The question of who shall ultimately bear the cost of the war must in the end be answered by tlie North Island, whose large confiscations of land must provide the great part of that cost. The keeping of seperate' accounts, while a war expenditure continues, is a process by no means difficult, and a method of accounting between the islands could easily be adopted without rushing into the blunder of separation.