The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1881.

Temuka Leader, Issue 806, 27 December 1881, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1881.

We are glad to notice that there is every j likelihood of direct steam communication ! being established between tl-is colony and the Mother Country before long. Letters which reached Timaru by the last mail contained the intelligence that two large steamers are being built on the Clyde for this purpose, and that we may expect the first of them to arrive in New Zealand in February next. The importance of this information must be apparent to everyone. Anything that brings nearer the maikets of Europe must have a beneficial effect on the growth and progress of our industries, and steam communication is the only thing that can do so. This question was aluvost overlooked at the last electious, but wherever it waa mooted candidates declared themselves in favor of granting a subsidy for that purpose, :md we feel sure that if the questiou were put to the wheje of the people of New Zealand they would be almost unanimously in favor of it. It would, we think, be a very nar-row-minded policy to object to it, as it would render the English and European markets more accessible to our agricultural and pastoral products. Our sources of wealth in this colony are principally agricultural and pastoral—they are the main-stay of the colony—and anything that would tend to benefit these industries would have also, a beneficial effect on oqr national prosperity. These industries are at present crippled by the inaccessibility of markets at which they can be disposed of. For instance, we ha" eno market for half the meat we can produce. While mutton is sold at from eightpence to a shilling a pound in England, it. can be bought here for two-pence or three-pence per pound, and so on with other classes ot meat. Our live stock is increasing yearly to an extent that reuders it necessary for farmers to look out for a market for them. The sheep of Canterbury increased by about 400,000 last yeai, and in the natural order of things the increase this year must be gre iter. There is no consumption in this colony for a quarter c£ the meat it can produce, and therefore the necessity arises for finding out the most profitable means of disposing of it. We know of no other means that will yield anything like the profit the meat-freezing system will. By this system several shipments of meat have already been successfully sent from Victoria to London, and sold there very profitably, consequently it must no longer be looked upon as a visionary scheme, but as a great source of wealth to any colony adopting it. But to carry out this system successfully we must have direct steam communication, and it is perhaps in this direction the colony will leap the greatest benefit from it. Dairy produce is another source of wealth—and not an insignificant one in this colony—which would find a more ready market if we had steamers plying between New Zealand and England. Several efforts have been made at exporting cheese to England, but so far as we know, no profitable degree of success has yet been attained. There are many other ways in which direct steam communication would benefit this colony, and there is no doubt that its establishment would tend to its prosperity and advancement. But its utility will be marred, and in fact it will be the cause of much local jealousy and party strife if only one port in New Zealand is appointed for the steamer to discharge and receive her cargo. Supposing Auckland were appeinted, it would not be much good for a meat freezing company down here, and vice versa. The best plan in our opinion would be for the steamer to visit the four principal ports of New Zealand, viz : Auckland, Wellington, Lyttleton, and Dunedin, and if this were done no place would have any cause for complaint, and the whole colony would benefit by it.

Corrupt Puactices Act.—T' e Hon, C. J. Pharazyn was, on Friday, committed for trial on a charge of plural voting at the recent eleoi iona for Thomdon, bail being 8!-. lowed in his own recognisance for L 5.