COMMERCIAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4500, 23 August 1875, Page 2

COMMERCIAL.

Tiie Customs revenue collected at the port of Wellington on Saturday was as follows: £ s. d. & 3. d. Spirits .. 125 7 3 Ad valorem Wine .. .. 5 17 goods .. 23 0 10 Tea .. .. 8 8 0 Total .. £lOl 17 8 The gross amount of Customs revenue for the week ending Satnrday August 21, .was .. .. .. .. .. £2679 15 6 ANTWERP VERSUS LONDON AS A MARKET FOE AUSTRALIAN WOOL. We have received the following pamphlet from Messrs. Johnston and Co., Wellington, as published by Sands and McDougall, Melbourne, which we reprint for general information : We translate the following from the Prcmrseur of Antwerp:—" The world belongs to energy” has said Monsieur de Tocqneville. If we doubted this saying, the astonishing progress of Antwerp would convince us of its truth. What was our city twenty years ago, compared with what it is now; and to what brilliant future may the great Flemish city not aspire? Our vessels are on nearly every sea ; our agencies extend their branches in all quarters of the world ; in every place where we have penetrated, we have created relations which tend to enrich the mother country, and to ensure for her that sympathy and that regard to which a free people, that knows how to respect the liberties of other nations, is justly entitled. We owe the finest conquests of our commerce to the practical and businesslike spirit which is fostered by our neutral position and by our removal from useless political quarrels. These victories are more valuable than those acquired at the cost of human life. Commerce is the marriage of nations, and tends to create peaceful and amicable feelings between them, thus benefiting humanity at large. Knowing this, we spare no trouble in extending and developing our commercial relations. We do not possess, it is true, like the English and Dutch, vast colonies which consume the manufactures of the mother country in exchange for their natural productions, but we have intelligence, capital, and the will to use them. Everywhere we have yet penetrated we have acquired an incontestable reputation for integrity and thrift. Our transactions with South America prove what we assert. Who could, a few years'back, have ventured to predict the immense increase of our wool business with that country, which in the last eight years has augmented fifty per cent., and who could have thought that now, with the aid of electricity, we should be able to follow day by day the changes and transformations as well in the politics as in the commerce of those distant countries. And why, we ask, have we so long remained strangers on the Australian shores ? Is it excusable for us to abandon to others a monopoly which could be shared by ns at the expense of a little trouble ? Why, having had confidence in South America, should we doubt when Australia is brought into question ? The large settlements of La Plata look to Antwerp now as their only market. Our countrymen have acquired there honor, credit, and business, and why should wo hesitate to plant on Australian shores the flag of our activity? Do we realise that in 1874 England has imported 100,000 bales more wool than in the preceding year. One hundred thousand bales! That means twenty-five million francs! Can Antwerp see this vast increase of business without wishing to obtain a part of it? But our rivals would discourage us. They put forward, as a barrier, the time-honored custom of. shipping Australian wools to London, the established financial relation and other equally weighty reasons, why the enqrmou masses of colonial wools should continue to pour into London only. But we submit, have the French or German buyers any particular reasons to prefer London to Antwerp, when the latter place Is so much nearer their manufactures? Let us consider the question. Antwerp has now been, for centuries we. may say, a great emporium of the wool trade. In the tiroes of Charles the Fifth, it was the great mart for English and Spanish wools. In later years, it obtained the greater part of the South American and Cape trade as well as that in Russian wools. It is easily accessible to all manufacturing centres. Its means of delivering the raw material to the different parts of the Continent at cheap rates, either by rail or canal, are unsurpassed. Its port is free, and the charges on wool are considerably below the average of British rates. Its conditions of sales are liberal, and so framed as to protect impartially the interests of both buyers and sellers. Its banking facilities are second only to London. It possesses warehouses specially fitted for and adapted to the storing and showing of wool for sale. Those warehouses are all centralised, thus affording every facility toAhe intending purchaser to examine the wools, without running from one Place to another, as is mostly the case in London, These are advantages which should secure us the support of all the French, German, Austrian, and Belgian m AnbwerpTin 1874, Imported altogether the respcctIbie number of 249,609 hales of wool; of which 144 171 found buyers at the public sales, and 112,646 „er'e in transit for France and Germany. (Of the latter number 85,000 bales were colonial wools in transit from England to France.) Now, if wo consider that, of these 249,609 bales, 160,931 were River Write wools weighing on an average 8 cwt., we have Uicimportations of Antwerp In 1874 equal to 306,640 tales of Australian or Cape greasy wools such as are

imported into London. The importations of Auat-ra lian wools into London in 1874 amounted to 025,213 bales Antwerp, therefore, imported nearly half that quantity of wool, and sold at the public sales equal to Ml 577 bales of Australian wool. Calculations prove that on the transit from London to the manufacturing districts of France bordering on Belgium there would be an economy on every 100 bales of 86C’13frs., or about £35 In favor of the manufacturers who purchased in Antwerp. The houses, therefore, that use from 3000 to 4000 bales a year would save over £IOOO per annum on this item alone. From these may conclude that not only will the French and German buyers not object to come to Antwerp if Australian wools are offered there, but that it will bo their interest to compete, and even pay higher prices, because of the advantages which they procure, amongst which not the least is the possibility of running back, in a few hours, to their homes and their business. We confidently assert, therefore, that whenever the Antwerp market presents a suitable choice of Australian wools, we shall see the buyers from England, the north of Fr&nce, the Marne, the Ardennes, Alsace, and Germany all appear to compete for them. Our opponents also put forward the objection that French, and more particularly English, buyers would not come over to Belgium as long as they could buy what they required in London. But facts are stubborn things! . . . The fine long wools from Monte Video, which are improving every year, and competing in the European market with Australian combing wools, have already brought to Antwerp the French combers, and those from Bradford and Huddersfield. The latter have found, moreover, that the transport by steamer and rail to those manufacturing places does not exceed the cost of railway carriage from London. It is, therefore, but reasonable to suppose that if suitable wools from other sources were offered to them in Antwerp, they would embrace the opportunity to purchase there. In 1873 they took £433,040 worth of wool from Belgium. \nother objection has been started, namely, that ships going to Antwerp direct would charge a higher freight than to London. But we submit that this statement has no foundation. The charges on ships are considerably less in Antwerp than they are in London, and the dangers of the navigation are certainly rather less than incurred by ships going to the latter port. Antwerp presents to ships quite as many chances of charter as London. In 1874 there entered into the port of Antwerp 4818 ships, gauging o 115 2 1 3 tons Of that number over 3000 navigated under the English flag, showing that the English shipping trade finds there a considerable field of work. Those English ships gauged 1,521,840 tons. Belgium is deeply interested in the question of direct trade with Australia: in exchange for her woollen, silk, cotton, hemp, and linen fabrics; her stearin© candles, her refined sugars ; her glassware, window glass, paper, leather, wire nails, iron and ironware, machinery, zinc, and many other articles ; which (as will be seen by the table at foot) are largely imported already into London, and thence re-exported to the Anstralias, she can take wool, tallow, hides, sheepskins, bark, and grain. Belgium is suffering from the want of a direct trade, and the English merchants who send her manufactured products, through England, to their colonies naturally levy a heavy toll on Belgian industry; and that both ways, for Belgium has hitherto been obliged to draw the raw material partially through the same channel. It is, therefore, certain that direct relations with the Australian colonies would foster the development of national industry, and Belgium will not be slow to appreciate the advantages of the movement set on foot to try fairly the value of Antwerp as a market for Australian wool Let the wool-growers of the colonies but show a liberal and unprejudiced spirit in this trial, and the returns' will speak for themselves. We .have looked at the question from the Belgian point of view. Let us now glance for a moment at it from the wool-growers’ point of view. The latter will naturally ask, What benefit shall I derive from sending part of my wool to Antwerp? We will answer this seriatim. The question of draft has been in London the source of vexation and contention. This custom does not exist at Antwerp. No draft is, therefore, one of the advantages to bederived; and this amounts, in the case of valuable wools, to a difference of from 3s. 6d. to 6s. per bale or say on the average about £2O on every 100 bales. The tare will be actual; that is to say that one bale in ten will be stripped, and the average weight taken as closely as possible. The wool is re-weighed after sale, thu- giving the grower the full benefit of the increased weight gained while in transit from the colonies and while in the warehouse. The samples will be paid for. The aggregate charges for landing, weighing, &c., with warehousing three months, do not amount to more than one-half the consolidated rates charged in London. The bidding at the sales in London cannot be less than one halfpenny, whereas in Antwerp it is five centimes per kilo, equal to one farthing per pound, thus allowing the grower to obtain the utmost value for his wool. Insurance and commission are the same as charged in London. Comparing side by side the account sales of 100 .bales wool sold in London under the most favorable circumstances as to charges, and 100 bales sold in Antwerp—freight and price being the same—there is a difference in favor of the wool sold at Antwerp of £32 Us. 3d. The pro forma accounts at the end of this pamphlet will illustrate our assertions. But besides the actual pecuniary advantages to be derived by the wool-growers in point of charges, there are wider and more comprehensive reasons why they should divide their interests, and cease to “put all their eggs in one basket.” \Ve know that it is more profitable for the producer and the consumer to be brought into the most immediate relations with each other, and the concentration of wools in one market naturally counteracts the wished-for result. On account of the large masses of wool imported into England (1,139,304 bales in 1874), and the correspondingly large public sales, there has arisen, both in England and in France, a class of wealthy dealers, which, while doing mnch to exclude the competition of the smaller men, has obtained a certain monopoly of the trade, and by this means levies on the mass of wool-growers a considerable tax. A great number of smaller manufacturers,, unfamiliar with the English language, or without financial arrangements across the Channel, are supplied by these dealers, who naturally reap the profits which should have been enjoyed by the producer. In Antwerp, on the other hand, the rapid and easy access by rail, the small cost of travelling, the similarity of language and customs, all favor the competition of the manufacturers themselves, thus insuring the realisation of the utmost value of the wool. The Antwerp wool sales alternate with those of London ; and if, therefore, the Belgian, French, and German buyers were certain of haring eight sales a year instead of four—if they could reckon upon obtaining suitable wools at either place—they would not be under the necessity of laying in such largo stocks at once, and the wool-growers would probably ensure a more ! regular range of prices, while they would benefit by the difference of the rate which the manufacturer would have to pay for interest of money. We may resume the probable advantages to wool-growers, and the reasons why their wools should sell in Antwerp at an advance on London rates, thus: — 1. The central position and present importance, second to London only as a wool market. 2. The cheap communication by rail with all the manufacturing districts on the Continent, especially those of the north of France, the Khenish provinces of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. 3. Its position and facilities of access are such as cannot fail to attract large numbers of Continental buyers who at present, from being unfamiliar with the English language, or without financial arrangements across the Channel, are precluded from using the London market, and have to buy second-hand from dealers.

4 The cheap steam communication with the Northern part of England, enabling English buyers from Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, and other places to get their wools forwarded at the same cost as from London.

6. The greater proximity and cheaper transport to the manufacturing districts where the great bulk of the wools purchased in London for France is employed, thus showing a reasonable hope of an advance upon the London prices in proportion. 6. There is no draft allowed. 7. Actual tare will be alio wed.

8, The wool is re-weighed on delivery, thus giving the wool-grower the benefit of the weight gained during the voyage and while in the warehouse. 9. The samples drawn will be paid for. 10. Wools withdrawn from sale, or arriving too late, are kept in the market for private sale. 11, The warehouse charges and sales expenses are very moderate, la. lOd. per bale as compared with 4s. in London.

12. Last, and not least, Antwerp is a neutral port, not liable to be affected by political disturbances. We might elicit many more reasons why the woolgrowers should favor Antwerp, but for these we shall refer them to the pamphlet published by W. A. Brodribb, Esq., and which treats of the manner in which the London wool business is carried on. We terminate by quoting a passage from Messrs. Griffiths and Co.’s circular (Sydney) The impetus has thus already been given to the establishment of more direct communications between producer and consumer, and while every assistance is being tendered towards its greater development by those in other countries, wool-growers and others here would not be doing justice to themselves to let the movement fail for want of co-operation. To ensure success all must do their utmost; and when we make known what is being done by some on the part of consumers, we trust that the producers will not be slow In coming forward and contributing their aid towards an object, the attainment of which cannot but result in promoting their best interests. Kevard Brothers & Co., , Wool brokers, Antwerp and Melbourne,