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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4131, 17 June 1874, Page 2

At intervals for several years the Chambers of Commerce in the Colony, and especially those of Dunedin and Christchurch, have urged upon the Commissioner of Telegraphs that he should supply, free of charge to those bodies, telegraphic intelligence as to the arrivals and depai’tures of shipping at the several ports. Doing so had always been objected to on the ground that the cost of the telegraphic system in New Zealand had been unusually large, and that, there being so many ports in the Colony, a gratis supply of shipping intelligence would really involve a large amount of work which ought not to be done free of cost. We understand, however, that recently the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce suggested to the Commissioner of Telegraphs that shipping intelligence might be supplied to the Chamber at Press rates, and that the Commissioner has consented to allow the information to be supplied at Press rates, provided the Chambers appoint in the several ports their own agents, from whom alone the messages would be received. It has also been decided by the Commissioner that any Chamber of Commerce or other public body in the Colony desiring to obtain the shipping intelligence tinder these arrangements may do so, upon the understanding that the information he supplied for general, and not for private, use. Nelson Out has not had many gubernatorial visits during late years, and Sir James Eergusson’s arrival in the yacht Blanche would, no doubt, be a very unpretending event. During his stay, however, according to arrangements, his Excellency will have several opportunities of meeting the citizens. His Excellency is the guest of the lately-elected Mayor, Mr. Dodson, and yesterday he was to hold a levee, while to-night there is to be a public ball, to he hold, of course, in the Provincial Hall. Probably, also, the Governor will have made some excursions into the country, though the season is not the most favorable for a view of the interior settlements, or of the comforts by which the settlers, by their genial climate and their own exertions, are now surrounded. The length of his Excellency’s intended stay is not stated, but it is likely that ho will leave very shortly for Wellington. During his absence from this City, he has visited many of the principal settlements in the North Island, and •will return largely informed as to the condition both of the European settlers and of the Native population.