MONEY MARKET.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1337, 27 March 1883, Page 2

MONEY MARKET.

In our last issue we (the Wellington Monthly Price Current) commented on tho quarterly returns of the banks trading in this colony. Tlie March numbpr of the Australasian Insurance and Banking Record is now before us, but does not, .as it has been accustomed to do in its March issue, furnish a summary of the banking returns of the seven Australasian Colonies, because the returns from Queensland and Western Australia had not come to hand at tho date of the Record's publication. It has given, however, the returns for the other colonies, viz., Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and we here summarise the principal items in these returns with comparison of the December quarters of 1881. Quarter Dec. 1882, Dec. 1881. £ £ Advances ... 78,402,207 65,601,238 Deposits ... 62,451,76!) 57,896,441 Circulation... 4,791,648 4,481,429 Coin ife Bullion 9,432,751 9,980,179 It will be noticed that the increase in advances has. been steady and rapid, the growth from year to year being at a rate of twelve millions, or a million a month, in the aggregate of these five colonies., Fronv December quarter of 1880 to the December quarter of 1882, it is about £25,000,000, or equal to 46 per cent. In December 1880 tho combined deposits and circulation were iii excess of the advances by £1,619,1)60, in December 1882 the advances were in excess by £3,223,367, and in December 1882 the excess of advances has grown to £11,158,790, We need scarcelyrepeat that the position in 1880 was not a healthy one; that advances were' abnormally low, but that the increase has manifestly been altogether too rapid ancl large to be healthy.