AGRICULTURAL, COMMERCIAL, AND MARITIME REPORT.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume V, Issue 14, 31 August 1858, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL, COMMERCIAL, AND MARITIME REPORT.

From the 15th to the 31st August According to the last intelligence, from Sydney, which dates to the 19th of this month, there was no alteration in any of the produce markets of Australia. Floor still remained at 20L per ton for fine, and 18/. per ton Tor second quality. Wheat Bs. per bushel; other grains as before, and no indication of a further*advance. Business was in a very dull conditioo, the articles maintaining the best prices and creating the largest demand being teas and sugars, which still continue scarce and dear, and without any prospect of a reduction in talue. Butter and cheese also command good prices; and we are glad to perceive, by our shipping lists, that these are articles which the colonists of New Zealand are directing their attention to. It is but a very few years since that considerable quantities both of butter and cheese used to be imported from Sydney into Auckland. Fortunately for the prosperity of the country this has been reversed, we no. longer import, but* are making a fair start in exporting those articles. .No country in the world possesses greater advantages for the manufacture of butter and cheese than New Zealand; nod where there are large dairy farms in fall employment, there are abundance of means for the feeding and fattening of pigs, and

thereby of prosecuting another and most profitable branch or trade—the salting and curing of pork and bacon. There are considerably more vessels at this moment in Auckland harbour than we have lately been in the habit of seeing here. Most of them are traders' to Sydney and Melbourne, and all of them are in search of cargoes which they find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. This is not only a natter of regret but of reproach to the occupiers of the soil of New Zealand, where produce of the finest quality, and in more than an hundred fold the quantity that is now to be had, might readily be grown. When will our native friends be wise? When will they see and pursue their own best interests? When will their strife be, not who shall best carry out the work of mutual extermination m revenge of petty and worthless feuds, but who shall excel the other in skill in subduing the ground, in the culture of that food which is required by man and beast* and by the fostering of commerce without which no country can be great, no nation prosperous. The rivalry of the plough and the spade is a far more honourable and Christian-like rivalry than that of the musket, it is one that would not only confer happiness upon those who pursue it, but whilst it made them individually rich, it would also elevate the country into a position of prosperity which it can never attain, whilst it is torn by the unhappy and ruinous conflicts of its children. . The arrivals since our last have been the schooner Gazelle', St 2 tons* Captain Phillip Jones, with goods and 6 passengers; the barque City of Melbourne, 477 tons, Captain AfcClememv also with goods and 7 passengers; the brig Gertrude, 121 tons, Captain Dunning, with a general cargo; and the brig Moa, 237 tons. Captain Bowden, with a large cargo of goods and 47 passengers; all from Sydney. The brig Sarah, 424 tons, Captain Firth, with sundry merchandise and 9 passengers, from Melbourne; the ketch Pegasus, 43 tons, Captain Brier, with 4 ton tahow, 2 passengers; and the schooner Emily Allison, 99 tons. Captain Ruxton, in ballast, with 2 passengers from Port Napier. The departures have been the screw steam ship White Swan, 330 tons, Captain McLean, for the Southern ports, with sundry merchandise and 50 passengers; the brigantine Spray, 406 tons, Captain Anderson, for Lyttelton, with goods, 54,000 feet

sawn timber, and 4900 shingles; and the American schooner Caroline E. Foate, 445 tons. Captain Worth, for Sydney, with 50 tons potatoes, 55 tons kauri gam, 400 lbs. butter, 30 cwt. onions, 448 bushels wheat, and 41 passengers. There have arrived coastwise 48 vessels of 4149 tons, with 78 passengers, 5273 bushels wheat, 4572 bushels maize, 72 bushels apples, 4800 bushels shells, 49 tons: potatoes, 445 cwt.. salt pork, 20 cwt. bacon, 5 cwt. lard, 44 bead cattle, 5 pigs, 28 tons kauri gum, tons flax, 9 tons green flax, 2 tuns oil. 6£ bushels barley, 900 posts, 900 rails. 950 feet bouse blocks, 4200 paliogs, 82,200 shingles, 521 tons firewood, and 58,800ieet sawn timber. The departures coastwise have been 45 vessels, Of 1017 tons, with 61 passengers, and the usual trading cargoes. The Markets are without change.' The following are the prices current, corrected to date:— , Groceries. Wheat . ... 6s. to 7s. per bushel Maize . . . . 6s. 6d. to 7s. per bushel Oats ....... 7s. per bushel Potatoes .... 81.10s. to 61. per ton Onions . , 2d. to 3d. per lb. Hay (plentiful) . . SJ. per ton. Kauri Gum . . • 9/. to 401. Live Stock. Sheep from • . 255. to 545. a bead. Dairy Cows . . 81. to 4 21, each. Calves from . • 255. to 40s. each. #eef and Motion from . 6d. to 7d. per bl. ork (fresh and salt) . . sd, to 6d. ditto x Bread Srorrs. Flour, fine, . . . . . 181. per ton. Floaty second quality, • . 441. per ton. Flour of native manufacture from 4 2f. to 14 Biscuit at from . . 245. to 28s. per cwt. Bread per loaf of 21b*. ... . . sd. Aran . . . . , . Is sdVperbl. Tea V ... tt. to 91,105. per chest Sugar . . . . 7d. to Bd. per lb.