CORRESPONDENCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XII, Issue 1775, 2 October 1895, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

(to the Editor. )

Sib, —In your issue of the 25th there is a paragraph on the proposed duty on raw fruit, containing the expressed opinion of the Government expert. It is almost inconceivable to me that an opinion such as that expressed should eminate from a person so placed, and on whose statements much weight is often placed. The opinion so expressed is that a duty on raw fruit would not affect during November, December and January, tbe shipments being so inconsiderable. If that expert had stood at the end of the Queen-street wharf in the month of December,, of any year for thirty years past, and Seen the thousands of cases of peaches, plums, apricots, pears, loquets and other fruits landed, there from the Sydney steamers, ho certainly would express a different -opinion, and he ought to have seen it to complete his knowledge of the subject. Many of the shipments do not pay; the freight, .2s per case, wharf dues, carting, comand other expenses absorb all proqoedsii. '% Other.fhipmehts pay handsomely, and although many retail fruitgrowers bite their fingers over the ■ high prices they *give for early Sydney fruit, still /they- will buy and the Sydiiey market being full to overflowing, the fruit especially about Christmas time, is literaiy teemed into Auckland, coining into; keen rivalry with our early peaches, plums, and before' the cofhpaiZalive failure of the strawberries with that fruit also, besides taking the edge of desire sharpened by the winter off the consumers palate. So the Sydney shipments- of .fruit' during December i?must unmistakably clash with the local growers produce, though it is generally of a superior quality. Still looking upon the Australian colonies as a whole, I do not think a prohibitive tariff would benefit the home producer very much, for with the increasing number of early varieties' of ptone fruits largely planted round Auckland, and country districts, the grow'ers should soon ba able to block the market against the imports.from Australia, without giving rise to feelings the reverse of reciprocal.—l am,, etc., Hsnry J. H awkins.

■5. r 28. i Lichmen in ted suiy • -jer 28. Ordered to British warie Yang tseiron has been ace of Quang i?LE, Sept. 28. ted to pay the by Russia and die assault on the m June. ; .XTiNOPiiE, Sept. 27. . Antioch, while searchj, -raided an Armenian Tiie Armenians fought ..ojtj, and lost ten in the engager ment. Shanghai, Sept. 29. An Anti-Foreign lunatic attempted to murder Count Ito, the Japanese Admiral and Premier. - London, Sept. 29. Ah Irish harvester working at Mexbofoughy in thO'West Riding of Yorkshire, became affected with the. heat, and stabbed six of his fellow lodgers while they were asleep. Two of- those are said to be dying and the others are in a bad way. Pams; Sept. 27. i Bouteille, who threw a bomb in Rothschild's bank, has been- sentenced itd three years’imprisonment.

THE RIOTS IN CHINA. London, September 29. A British Ultimatum has been presented to the Court of Pekin regarding the riots in Szechuen. It demands within fourteen days the issue of an .edict degrading the Viceroy of that province ; otherwise the Admiral on the China station will be instructed to take action. . - Aresdeacon Woolfe exonerates Mr M anstield, the English Consul, from the charge of apathy in connection with the Kucheng massacre.

, London, September 3C. The Standard hints that it is possible that Nankin may be occupied by British troops; . The .Consuls at Kucheng propose to bring the inquiry to a termination. They find the opposition of the Chinese intolerable.’ The soldiery openly insulted Mr Mansfield.. HaTannati, Septombor 23. The captain of a company- of Cuban i volunteers met lils own son at the head of a band of iusurg uts. The son shot his father dead, and routed the volunteers. . L >ndon, September 29. Seventeen. British warships are now assembled at Lemnos’, in the iEgean. The Porte is alarmed at this on the"part of the Imperial Govormnent.