PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1880. MORE TRADE.

Patea Mail, 5 October 1880, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1880. MORE TRADE.

Two offers have been received at Patea to put a large steamer on the cattle trade between this port and Manakan. One offer was dependent on a guarantee of full cargoes during three months. The other offer was dependent only on a satisfactory report as to the prospects of the cattle trade. The new wharf for shipping stock will be ready within three months, and any attempt to open the trade on a large scale with present facilities would be made under disadvantages which ought to be clearly understood. The two offers were made within a few days after the Mail had suggested that Yvhat this port requires in the shape of additional steam-service is a good cattle boat of large carrying capacity and light draught. This journal goes to every important town in the colony. It is our policy to get it there, in order that the development of the West Coast may be stimulated in a practical way. For the same reason it is necessary to prevent disappointment to intending traders by stating that the present facilities for shipping stock must continue to be primitive and insufficient until the new wharf is finished. Mr Dickson is now making a good show of progress with the work, and the capabilities for shipping under the cliff, in deep water, will now be more apparent to those who doubted the suitability of the town side for a good wharf. Driving cattle from this district to Waitara, along the Mountain road, a distance of 50 or 60 miles as against 10 or 20 to Patea, must be a losing game when competition from this port allows the trade a fair opportunity to find its way along the shortest, quickest, and cheapest route. It must come, Impediments may delay but cannot prevent this harbor from serving its natural use as a convenient

water-gate for the West Coast between

Waitotara and Wainiate, embracing Stratford and Ngaire inland. Another consideration will be evident: that the southern markets are likely to become increasingly important to the produce of this const, by their greater rate of increase as compared with the north.