PAPAROA.

Wairoa Bell, Volume IV, Issue 156, 29 July 1892, Page 2

PAPAROA.

| from our own correspondent.] Our Mutual Improvement Society has had a good deal to contend with of late, in the way of bad weather and roads, and sickness among the members and friends who attend. Your readers will he sorry to learn that the Fish, Meat, and Fruit tinning trade on the Otamatea, Kaipara, is about to lapse. The firms who have been engaged in the trade in the past are Messrs Ewing and Co., arid Messrs Masefield Bros. Some time back Ewing and Co., who were also engaged for a time in tinning fresh beef for Messrs Colbeck (Toka Tapu), removed, and started a factory at or near Russell, Bay of Islands, where mullet is more plentiful. Their Batley works were then shut down. Messrs Masefield followed suit and both firms have now factories in the North. The latter firm, however, still continued the putting up of first rate beef, together with the tinning of schnapper, and the preserving of fresh fruit huge quantities of which are grown at their extensive orchard at Pakaraka, Otamatea. However the importation of tinned salmon, etc, is it appears, teiking the place of the locally packed article, while the firm complain that tho tinning of beef does not return remunerative prices. The preserving of pears, was I believe, returning a profit, and deservedly so, for those who have tried a tin of Masefield’s “ Paradise ” pears, can bear witness to their delicious flavour and

superior quality, but 1 presume the firm could not continue this industry by itself. And so this important trade is to go the way of so many of our rther Colonial industries. Verily it would seem as though “ Ichabod ” were written in big letters on the township of Batley. With a large flourmill, and two preserving factories standing idle or ernpey the outlook of the place is by no means promising. The Rev. John Walter, of Auckland, preached in the Wesleyan Church on Sunday evening last, July 17th, to a good congregation. If the principles Mr Walter teaches are taken to heart and acted upon as they should be, much good will result from his visit. Let us hope that this will be the case.