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Southland Times, Issue 703, 31 July 1867, Page 2

We understand that a requisition is in course of signature to Messrs Calder, Macdonald, and Pearson, to aUow themselves to be placed ia nomination in represent tho district of InvercargiU in the Provincial Council. We are glad to perceive that the citizens have fixed upon three gentlemen whose known abUity wiU make them most valuable acquisitions to the Provincial Council. If such men were in the CouncU during the last session, very different might have been the prospects of the province by the passing of the raUway scheme. Each citizen should at once sign the requisition. It wiU be seen from a notice in another column that the first drUl meeting of the InveroargUl Volunteer Corps wih take place on Friday evening next, 2nd August, at the Auction Room of Mr Geisow, Tay-street. It is with regret that we have to record the death of Mr Robert A.uld, who for a considerable period was accountant in this office. He was a faithful servant, and only ceased his connexion with this paper when the state of his health necessitated his giving up the laborious work of a newspaper. It wiU be seen from our advertising columns that John Blacklock, Esq., lata Provincial Treasurer invites the electors of InvercargiU to "meet him at the Theatre Royal on Friday evening, .the 2nd July. A Tea Meeting in connexion with the opening Services of the Wesleyan Church, wiU be held this evening, and afterwards a public meeting, at which the Revs. Stobo, Bunn, "Bethune, and other gentlemen are expected to address the meeting. The foUowing is an extract from a private letter recently received from South America. The writer is a gentleman who formerly was a sheep farmer in Southlaud : — " Monte Video, March 20th, 1867. I cannot recommend people to come out here. All camp men are complaining, but still there must be a great future before the country, as nature has done everything ; but I think almost any business is better here than sheep farming. Merchants do weU ; all do weU during times of peace except sheep farmers, and the low price of wool sews them up. I. had a camp for nine months, but it wa3 a camp unimproved by cattle, and during the wintor I was building and preparing for stook, £. saw tfio result of sheep fanning on those draps, and what I saw was about 50 per cent dead at the end of the winter frcm exposure — but exposure nothing worse than a summer sou-wester in New Zealand. But there was too little nourishment in the grass, and they were, therefore, too weak to stand any hardship. However, my neighbors saw aU these things in a different light, and bought me out — 30 horses, coral, rancho, and aU. I cleared good interest, at the rate of 17 per cent per annum, and am glad I am out of it. Banks here give about 10 per cent on current accounts. Land speculations pay weU here at present, but I am rather afraid of them, as I have seen what speculations in land comes to in New Zealand. Che camp t spoke of where the sheep died go last, waa in Santa Fe, a part of tho oountry only

lately settled. On camps which have been stocked sufficiently long, the grass completely changes, and is then good for sheap. But droughts are very numerous here, and in nearly aU the camps in Santa Fe there is a total absence of wood and water. Large wells are necessary to draw water when the ponds dry up, which always happens very soon after rain. Camp Land costs only 7s or 8s an acre, freehold. Mine, in Santa Fe, only 2s an acre, as it was hard camp." The Official Report of the Hon. A. R. C. Strode, R.M., as to the loss of the South Australian, is published in the "New Zealand Gazette" -of the 16th inst; Capt Thomson, as nautical assessor, concurring. The usual four questions are answered ; but only the third of the answers is material. It is — " That the loss or damage appears by the evidence to have been caused mainly by the incorrectness of the deviation card supphed by the authorities at Melbourne, inasmuch as the aotual course made ; by the South AustraUan on the night in question has been lf points to the westward of the course indicated by the deviation card, supposing the position of the point at which the course was shaped to have been correct," The Magistrate's opinion is thus stated : — " That at the time the course was Bhaped abreast of Cape Saunders (up to which time the vessel had been steered hy the land) presuming the vessel to have been about four mUes off the coast, as appears by the evidence of the master, she must have taken considerably more than the customary offing for steamers in daylight : the usual course being when abreast of that Cape about li mUes from the land. S. S. W. course, which was the course set, steered according to the deviation card, from li miles from Cape Saunders, tho usual track for steamers, would, with the cnrrent on the port bow, which is known to exist, place the vessel on the reef on which she struck. There seems by the evidence to have been no effort made from time to time to determine the true position of the vessel, and, particularly at the time of shaping the course, the evidence of the master and that of the cheif officer being on that point very conflicting. Moreover, this is the more apparent from the fact of the master having, after the vessel struck, supposed his position to be south of the Nuggets, and having given an order to one of the officers in charge of a boat to steer a N. N. E. course in order to fetch the Molyneux. It appears from the testimony of all the witnesses that the night on which the disaster occured was fine, calm, and starlight, with a slight haze over the land, but quito clear overhead. Under these circumstances it seems somewhat unaccountable that the close proximity of the land wat not observed by those connected with the management of the ship, and consequently but one conclusion is forced upon me {i.e.) that the look-out was insufficient and careless of his duty ; and even supposing that the land was partiaUy obscured by the haze, a cast of the lead every hour should have been taken. The evidence discloses that no officer was in charge of the bridge of the vessel where the telegraph to the engine-room was fixed. This cricumstance appears to show something, to say the least, unusual, when a steamer is under weigh : but from the evidence adduced I must conclude that' the ioss of the South Australian was not in the words of the 242 nd section of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, caused by the wrongful act or default of the master or any other officer of the ship. In conclusion, I deem it right to state that the master had been fourteen years at sea, and four and a half years in the trade between Otago and Melbourne, and had never met before with thr slightest accident." The report is dated the 23rd April. The °S. A. Register" says : — We are glad to hear that the cargo of wheat shipped in the Alaxandria for England, by Mr Derwent, has been sold to arrive at 70s per quarter, which leaves a net price at this end of something more than 6s per bushel. This is good news for the farmers who have shipped on their own account ; and it shews that with the English market much lower than it is at present, in seasons when our crops are large, we may export to England with a prospect of fair profit. A gentleman writing from Liverpool predicts that wheat wUI be 100s per quarter before the year is out.