COMMERCIAL.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 296, 7 August 1875, Page 2

COMMERCIAL.

Tni total amount of Customs duties received at the Port of Poverty Bay for the month of July was £560 19s Bd. The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company’s circular of the Ist June reports: — Wool—The second series of Colonial Wool sales for the present year commenced on 4th May with a catalogue comprising the following proportions :— New South Wales and

Of these arrivals, about 12,500 bales (viz., 4,000 Australasian and 7,600 Cape) were .forwarded direetto the Yorkshire and other manufacturing districts and the Continent, leaving therefore about 267,000 bales of the .fresh arrivals available for the auctions, in addition to any parcels which may hare been held over from previous sales. This quantity is some 30,000 bales les* than was originally anticipated, a circumstance mainly attributable to the delay to homeward-bound vessels caused by contrary wind*. The sales opened with a very large attendance of Home and Foreign buyers, whose biddings were characterised by considerable animation, and the prices established were fully eqnal to the closing rate* of the February and March auctions. Since the commencement of the sales a more or less general ad rance has been manifested in the value of the staple, and there are indications that the improvement is likely to hold good, at all events during the current series, and possibly to a great extent throughout the season. The principal advance exhibited in the course of the sale* thus far has been in cross-bred and very fine Merino Fleece washed parcels. The former, notwithstanding a material increase in the supply, have commanded keen and sustained competition at an improvement of fully Id per lb. on March rates, while for the latter an equal advance has been secured. Ordinary and lower qualities of fleece wool are about id dearer. Lambs’ wool, so far as respects fine washed parcel* ha* advanced Id per lb. greasy remaining at about February price*. Scoured • wools, with the exception of Capes, do not appear to hare participated in the advance noticeable in other descriptions, or at all event* not to the same extent. Grease wools generally are in strong demand from the French trade, and on everage command some advance on tne extreme rates for similar parcel* at the preceeding auctions. New Zealand do not admit of comparison with February-March, bnt Victorian and South Australian unwashed shipments, with the exception of the lower grades of the latter, are selling quite as well as in that series. The main feature in favour of New Z.-aland produce is the improved value of cross-bred and long wool, so large a proportion of which comes from that colony. This is to some extent specially due to the report of a deficiency of some 14 per cent, in the Home growth, as to the foundation for which it is impossible a* yet to pronounce.

Queensland ... ... 745 Bales. Victoria 1,977 »» Booth Australia... i.. . . ... 8,273 IJ Tasmania 66 »» New Zealand 131 n Cape pf Good Hope ... . . ... 995 i> Total 6,187 Bales. The total quantity which arrived in time to be included in the series was as follows New South Wales and — Queensland ... 50,606 Bales. Victoria... ... ... ... ... 112,130 h South Australia ... 37,430 »» Western Australia ... ... 5,466 » Tasmania ..1 ... 6,214 » New Zealand ... 36,423 as Cape of Good Hope ... ... 31,178 »> Total ... 279,447 Bales.