BUSINESS ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 435, 14 June 1879, Page 2

BUSINESS ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

The Emperor and Empress of Brazil are contributing ten per cent, of their income to the reduction of the deficit in the revenue of the country. When the Mail left there were between 50,000 and 60,000 men on strike in connection with the Durham coal trade. Before be strikes the average of wages was 5s o£d a day for eleven hours, and 4s B£d for ten hours, with free houses and fire coal.

Another attempt is being made in America to force a silver circulation upon the country. It will not succeed, however, for though nearly £6,000,000 worth of silver dollars have been coined since the passing of the Bland Act, more than three-fourths of them remain in the Treasury. Let inflationists legislate as they like, they will never succeed in getting a free people to exchange gold, or its equivalent in notes tor deprecated silver money. The now Canadian tariff is spoken of ns a very shortsighted affair. It imposes a duty on all manufactured articles, including steel rails, and at the same puts a duty on coal, for the benefit of Nova Scotia coal owners. Thus, while protecting their manufacturers in one way, the Canadians cripple them in another, by raising the price of coal and of railway carriage. Nothing could better illustrate the hollowness and absurdity of any attempt at universe! protection. England has made no appeal to the Sultan to interfere in the affairs of Egypt. The Khedive is bad, but the Sultan would be worse. England desires to loosen the hold which Turkey has on Egypt, so as to separate the latter country as such as possible from the Eastern Question, and thus reduce the amount of her own stake in its settlement.

The English railways pay a passenger duty, which produces about £777,000 per annum at present, or £250,000 a-year more than it did fire years ago. But the tax is very unpopular with the railway interest, and there is a proposal now to let the lines buy themselves off, by the payment of a lump sum of £10,000,000 or £11,000,000. This would be a convenient windfall to the Chancellor of the Exchequer just now; but it is pertinently objected that if the tax is unjust it should be abandoned without consideration, and if it is just it should bo retained, as it is a rapidly growing source of revenue, a birthright that should not bo sold for a mess of pottage.

The Egyptian revenue for 1878 shows a falling off of nearly £1,500,000 as compared with ’77. Two-thirds of the decrease was in the land revenue, and was owing to the bad Nile the latter year. More than half the revenue went to the Public Debt Commissioners, There was a high Nile last summer, and things are expected to improve.

As the number of solvent shareholders in the Glasgow Bank is narrowed down, the calls assume tremendous proportions. It is proposed to demand the sum of £2,250 per £IOO stock.

The new German Tariff indicate that the Germans are sadly behind in the finer branches of all manufactures; for the duty almost invariably rises in proportion as the fineness of the work increases. Pig and scrap iron pays Is per 100 kilogrammes; Malleable iron, 2s 6d; roughty wrought iron, 3s ; while on the purer kind of knives, scissors, &c., the duty will be 245, and on steel pens, guns, &c., 60s. Cotton lace, and embroidery will bear a tax of 250 marks per 100 kilos, and linen lace 600 marks per 100 kilos—that is about £3O duty on every 200lbs.

It is said that the present system of letting land in England is very damaging to the country. In the ten years from ’67 to ’77 land under schedule A increased in annual value, according to the Income Tax Assessment, only from £63,000,000 to £70,000,000, while the yearly value of house property increased from £72,000,000 to £103,000,000. The reason of this stagnation in land, is the system of short tenures in vogue with landowners. «Vith the hope of being able to take advantage immediately of any improvement in agricultural affairs, the English landloard lets his land almost from year to year, and thus most effectually prevents the improvement for which he hopes; for under such circumstances the farmer is not likely to go in for expensive improvements. Long tenures obtain in Scotland and the value of land rises faster.

As far as Canada is concerned, England certainly seems to be losing her trade with her colonies. In 1873 the Dominion imported from Britain fifty per cent, more than from the States ; in ’7B it imported thirty per cetit more from the States than from Britain. In the

former year Britain supplied fifty-four per cent, of the Canadian imports, and the States thirty-seven per cent. In the latter year the order of things is reversed, and the States supply more than fifty three per cent,, and Britain only fortyone per cent. A strange attempt was made on March. *Bth to rush a bill through the House of Commons, empowering the Government to raise an East Indian loan of .ten millions. The introducer of the bill said he hoped .the House would pass the motion without discussion, because he had not full information on the matter, and until that was received from India it was very necessary to speak with caution; Wonderful to relate, the House thought this was the very reason why the matter , should be postponed, and it waspost-*'. poned accordingly^ There is some prospect that at last,, the Americans may be compelled to respect the rights of the British author by the consequences of their present and past ignoring of them* Formerly the publisher in America who first pirated an English author's work, was allowed to have a kind of monopoly ; tnefe honour among thelves. Of late thisw practice has died out, and twenty firms may publish the book for which none of them has paid. This desperate rivalry has cut their own throats; for their is . no margin leftfor profit. A three volume novel of Trollope’s is sold for fifteen cents. No publisher can now afford to pay an American author for a work, because the house over the way will steals work equally good, and pay nothing; American outhors are therefore practically ruined, and American publishers are almost in the same fix, for stolen works afford very Utile profit, and the public will hardly buy any other, because the difference id price is so great. This state ot things may lead the Yankees, for their own sakes, to respect the laws of copyright. The last business item that we shall notice, is of a touching character. A Flemish lady of great wealth lost an eye, and had it replaced by a false one, the ball of which was set round with brilliants. She secured an admirer and a husband,who spent her fortune, and then absconded with her eye, which was taken out every night. Wherever he went this bright eye haunted him. He tried to leave it in a jeweller’s shop, but was arrested;