The Southland Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1870.

Southland Times, Issue 1310, 20 September 1870, Page 2

The Southland Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1870.

Periodical returns are matters of detail, the true importance "of which is apt 'to- be overlooked." Their bearings are prospective as well as retrospective. They are guides to the future as well as chronicles of the pa3t, inasmuch as they define with magnetic precision the course we are shaping. They are floodmarks by which current events are registered, and, when carefully attended to, they indicate an ebb or flow with the nicest accuracy. The import trade returns of the colony for the second quarter of the current year have just been issued. Compared with the corresponding quarter of last year, they exhibit results liable to be construed into a retrograde movement. Eor example, the relative value shows a decline of from twenty to twenty-one per cent.,thefigures bein<*— lß69, £1,273,625, against £1,048,321 for the quarter of the present year. This shortcoming may be attributed to a variety of causes other than a falling off in the number of the population, or an extra depression in the state of trade. Lower rates in the foreign market, -or the establishment of more direct communication with the produce-fields, will to a certain extent account for it. Indeed, the impression that such is an operating cause is strengthened by the fact that the registered . tonnage of vessels entered inwards for the present year exceeds that of the previous one. A more powerful cause operating towards a reduction of our imports is to be fonnd in the progress local industries have of late been making. Take the item of beer alone, and tike Customs revenue shows a falling off of at least sixty per cent. Now, we are not seeking occasion to impugn the laudable efforts of our total abstinence friends, when we say the fact is notorious that beer-drinking has increased instead of being diminished. Indeed, one feature in the progress of the temperance movement is demonstrated in the extent to which' ardent spirits have been replaced by wines and beers. The solution, then, of the original problem put forward is that local breweries have come to supplant the import trade. Of course we are not expected to enumerate every brewery in the colony, but limiting our observation to Otago and Southland, we find at least I a dozen of these establishments in active , operation, the majority having been erected within the last few years. Other heads of revenue similarly affected may with equal justice be traced to the spread of local manufacture. Viewed in that light, the falling off is matter for congratulation rather than regret. It shows that we are utilising our latent resources, hedging in our material wealth, and otherwise cultivating the true spirit of social economy.