COMMERCIAL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 12, 15 April 1871, Page 10

COMMERCIAL.

New Zealand Mail Office, Friday evening.

We note an improving demand for goods of every desei'iption for the ouiports, although the stoppage of the road to the Wairarapa district for drays necessarily checks operations in a quarter where a large trade has been hitherto done. Otherwise the business of th« past week has been especially dull and no transactions of any magnitude have eorae under notice. In imported goods stocks continue ample and prices rule low. Sales are .restricted within the smallest possible limits consistent with the keeping up of the neces- • sary stock, for the ordinary requirements of the retailers' trade. In other respects matters appear to be moderately healthy, the caution that has for some time past been exercised by buyers having been followed by good results that would be further increased if some check to the exaggerated system of credit to retail customers could be adopted. We firmly believs that in no other part of the world can there be so much credit given for small articles, and the consequenee follows that the retail shopkeeper is always hampered by a large number of book debts, insignificant in their separate amounts, but gradually increasing on his books from year to year, until his capital is swallowed up, and in the event of insolvency or. death, these amounts become impossible of collection. We cannot too strongly deprecate this system of universal credit, which is, in reality, the hidden cause, which has for sometime past been sapping the foundations of business in the city, the evil results of which, we fear, have yet to be felt, although w© | hardly see a cure for it in the present overI done number of retail shops. | Groceries are in full supply. In wines and spirits the usual amount of businers is done, with little variation in price,, and stocks in bond continue heavy." Flour is at our last quotation, with a slight tendency to harden, and sales of Canterbury of first brands have been made at £l3los and £l4 per ton, but the trade do not seem inclined to lay in stocks even at these figures, in spite of the general indications of a rise in value in all the adjacent colonies,' and rather lean to the opinion that, owing to to the large yield in the crops of the past season no material advance in value can be sustained. There have been no arrivals of oats, but w© hear of a sale of 1000 bushels of prime sample to arrive at 2s 9d per bushel. Our market is in the meantime well supplied, and as dealers hands are full, any large qvantity sent in would considerably depress prices. There is no imptftaement in the butter trade, and prime cured butter in kegs may be said literally to " go a begging" at 6d per lb. The export cattle trade i& also at a standstill, Bnd stockowners complain of no demand. Fat beasts for the butcher are worth 15s per lOOlbs.