Commercial Record.

New Zealander, Volume 10, Issue 885, 7 October 1854, Page 2

Commercial Record.

Nbw-Zkalandee Office, Auckland, October 6th, 1854. We Lave literally no commercial intelligence to report. Tlie market is completely stocked ; and the imports, since our last, by the Elizabeth, the William Denny, and the Moa. have added considerably to our previous abundant supplies. At the close of one season, and with some months to pass by before we can touch the produce of another, trade, at such a time. IS almost invariably dull. Such is the case with us at , resent ; and the large importations daily expected by English ships due, and over due. are not likely to permit any speed reaction. Rice baa long been an article of the utmost scarcity, and in great request. Some ten or a dozen tons have recently reached us, and the commodity is being retailed at Bd. per lb. There have been scarcely any arrivals.coastwise, rturing the week; and the only produce received lias been 1030 bushels of wheat, a small parcel of maize, a tew tons of salt pork, and a few packages of bacon, Buildin" materials, it will be seen, still maintain a most exorbitant price, bricks having jumped from 61 to 10/ per thousand. In other articles we make little or no alteratmn in our figures, but quotations in geneial may be accounted nominal. liuiLDiNO Materials.—Timber, 255. to 275. per 100 feet ; shingles, 15s. to 20s. per 1000 ; palings, 18s. to 20s. per 100 ; bricks, £lO per 1000. Sundries.— Firewood (on the decline), 10s. to lis. per tun ; coals, £4 10s. to £5 per ton ; posts, £6 ; rails, £4 per 100 ; flax (very scarce and in demand), £3O to £4O per ton. accordingly to quality ; kauri gum (on the decline), £l7 to .£2O per ton. Labour.— Masons (per diem), 12s. to 155.; bricklayers (perdiem), 12s. to 155.; carpenters (per diem), 125.; cabinet makers (perdiem), 12s. to 135.; farm servants (with rations), from £35 to £SO per annum ; female servants, Bs. to 12s. per week ; day labourers, 7s. to Bs. per diem. Cart and dray hire (in town), from 3s. 6d. to 4s. Cd per load. AUCKLAND MARKET PRICE. Fitiday Evening, October 6th 1854. The Mi lis.—Mr. Fletcher's Steam Mill:—Flour first quality, £35, seconds, £32 per ton. Wheat, may be quoted at from We. to 12s. per bushel; oats (a limited supply), Bs. to 10s. per bushel; barley, very scarce—in fact none; maize, Bs. to 9s. per bushel; bran, 3s. per bushel. Messrs Low and Motion : —Flour, first quality, £35, seconds, £32 per ton, Imported Flour £3O per ton; wheat, Us. to 12s. per bushel ; rnaize, 9s. to 10s. per bushel; bran, 3s. per bushel; Mr. Partington's:—Flour, first quality, £35, seconds, £32 per ton; wheat, lis. to 12s. per bushel; bran, 3s. per bushel. Agricultural Produce.—Potatoes, .£l2 to £l4 terton; wheat, 10s. to 12s. lid. per bushel ; oats(scarce) 9s. to 10s, per bushel; maize, new 10s., old 12s. per bushel ; barley none ; clover seed (white), very scarce red, 112s. per cvvt.; grass seeds—rye, ('scarce), ljg. mixed, Bs. to 10s. per bushel ; straw, £8 to J_ 10 per ton ; hay (pressed for shipment), £l2 to £l4 per ton. Dairy Produce.— Hutttr (fresh), 2s. salt 2s. per lb.; cheese (colonial), Is. to Is. 3d. per lb.; Lams, Is. ; bacon, lOd. per lb. : fowls, ss. to 6s. per couple; ducks (scarce), 7s. per couple; geese. 7s. to Bs. each ; Turkeys (scarce), 10s. to 12s. each; lard. 9d, to lOd. per lb.; milk, Bd. per quart; eggs, Is. 9d. to 2s. per dozen.

Provisions. — Reef (fresh), Bd.—retail—9d. to lOd per lb. ; lri?h (wholesale), 7d. to (Jd per lb. ; Sydney £6 10s. per tierce; mutton, Sd. to 9<l. per lb.; veal (scarce), lOd. to 11J. per lb. ; pork, (fresu), 7d. ; 9d, ; New Ztaland salt ditto, 6£d. to 7d. per lb. lamb, per quaner, tis. to 7s:; bread 9d. per 21b. loaf biscuit cabin, to 495. ; ship, -10s. to 425.; pilot 335. to 38s. per cwt.

Stock.—Working Bullocks from "0/. to 45/. per pair. Carves 40s. to 60s. ; ewes 255. ; wedders 225. ; Morses for the plough 50/. to 60/.; cart 70/. to 90/. ; Hacks 25/. to 30/.

Groceries.—Tea Congou, £8 per chest; bysonskin (little used), £6 10s. to £7 per chest ; sugar, raw 3Jd. to 4Jd. per lb, ; loaf, 6d. to 6£d. per lb. ; per refined, Cossipore, sjd. perlh.; sugars of the common qualities of brown, are deficient. Of other qualities, there is a fair supply. Coffee, lOd. per lb. ; soap, 40s to 45s per cwt.candles, (Sydney mould).lid. Belmont sperm, per lb. ls.6d*<:o Is. Sd, per lb.; sperm, 2s. to 2s. 3d. per lb.; salt (Liverpool) £6 to £6 IDs, per ton ; dairy salt, £8 per ton ; pickles, pints, (fiirsale), 12s. to 12s. 6d. per doz"ii ; salad oil. scarce ; tobacco, a fair supply, Is. to Is. 3d. in bund ; duty, Is. per lb.; soda, crystals, 2!s, per cwt'; sperm oil, none; black oil, none; 3-bushel to 275. per dozen.

Wines.—Champagne. Claret, and Madeira very dull Port, £7 to £8 per quarter cask; iu cases, dull; sherry nominal.

Spirits in Bond, Duty Gs.—Brsndy, (full supply) Martell's dark, 13s. to 15s, per gallon: Geneva, (full Stocks) 20s. to 21s. per case ; rum, (very bare) 7». to 10s. per gallon ; whiskey, 10s. to 12s. p-r g»llon. Beer.—Ale. Bass's Burton, (bareiy supplied) £9 to £lo 10s. per hhd; colonial 4/. per hhd. Loudon bottled 15s. to 16s. per dozen ; porter, Truman's, XX, (heavy stocks) £7 10s. to £'B per hhd.; colonial, £4 10s. per hhd. ; London, bottled, 14s. to 15s. per dozen.

Boots and Shoes.—B.tb men's and women's (hravy) are in demand ; N«poleon's 3. r >s. to 40s. per pair; Wellington's English, 3 s. to 32s ; colonial, 355. to 40s. per pair; blucher's and Oxford, English, l'2s. colonial, 14s. per pair; Women's clotb boots, B*. to 10s. per pair; shoes, 4s. 6d. to 6s. per pair. TRADE WITH NEW ZEALAND. [From the Melbourne Morning Herald, Aug. 2a] We made allusion a day or (wo ago to the fact that the William Denny, steamer, had commenced a regular trade between Sydney and New Zealand. The New Zealandera were jubilant on the occasion, and though the name has still a cannibal smack about it, it may be appropriately used, for a number of niaoiies were among the shareholders in the Auckland company formed to purchase a share in the William Denny. Indeed, not the least interesting circumstance connected with the interesting colony of New Zealand is this,— ■ that the aborigines, instead of dying away before the progress of the white man, as in almost every analogous case with which we are acquainted, are acquiring gradually an equal footingVith himself, and are likely to be preserved tor an indefinite period in a mixed race that may not impossibly take in the Southern hemisphere the all-dominant place that our great Anglo-Saxon mongrels have assumed in the Northern. Such speculations, however, are beside the prcseut purpose, Jand we merely del re to-day to impress upon the Victorian mercantile classes the impolicy of permitting the New Zealand trade to be altogether diverted from our shores to New South Wales, as will be the case if the sole liue of steam communication between Australia and New Zealand be that just established between Sydney and Auckland. Such a limitation of the trade would be exceedingly injurious to ourselves, who are still so dependent upon other places for all agricultural supplies. For these we have left ourselves subject to the contingencies of foreign tradp. We have done so, not because we are in the position of our mother country—an overcrowded manufacturing district that rationally looks to less populated parts of the world's surface for those things that require much room to be produced—but because we have discouraged self-dependence for the prime necessaries of life, and beeause, though our lands are uncrowded and fertile, we have placed ourselves by the aid of bad laws and class government in the condition of an old ind over-populated country. We have lelt ourselves dependent for our daily bread upon countries wLich—according to the mere distribution of Nature's bounties—we should have supplied rather than be supplied from ; and though we may legitimately hope that this unnatural state of things may not be of very long duration, we must take especial care while Gey last that we do not let our supplies by commerce slip through our fingers, as we havt) permitted our supplies by production to do. " The extension of our trade with New Zealand would to some extent have been equivalent to an extension of our own agricultural resources, and we regret to observe that this addition has been mad- to the estate of New South Wales rather than to that of Victoria. As it is, there can ba little doubt that the greater portion of the produce that may he taken to S\dney from Auckland will eventually have to find its way to Melbourne, and what we have secured by permitting ourselves to be forestalled in the New Zealand trade is the necessity for paying all the 'costs, charges, and expenses' incident to bringing goods to our market by a circuitous instead of a direct route. This is at once a public and a private question for surely as the public will have to sutler for this indirect communication, so surely would merchants in Melbourne be able to secure, in the shape of private profits, a portion of the extra price we shall now have to pay it a direct ime of steamers between Melbourne and the great and rising colonies of New Zealand be not speedily establisl ed.