CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4043, 20 February 1892, Page 2

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

Annual lieoting.- ; The annual meeting of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce took place on Thursday afternoon, the President (Mr J. Duncan) being in the chair, aud about 15 members being present. . 1 The annual report was taken as rend,

The Secretary submitted the 1 balance-sheet, which showed the receipts to have been £2OO 199, of which the subscriptions furnished £IBB 15s, ThS' disbursements (including rent, £100) amounted o £193 10s 61, leaving a credit balance of £7 Bs.6d, president's address, The President, in moving the adoption oi the report and balanceshi'et, delivered a loiig address, He saw no reason to change the views he had expressed kst year with respect to the North Island Trunk Railway, but as a syndicate had taken upon itself to protect Wellington interests therein, there was no necessity to dwell on the matter. An inspection of the raised map at the Museum would show that there would ; be nothing loßt by delay. The paramount question was; Will tho line pay ? and until that could be answered satisfactorily it was better to wait. He thought that as the* construction of the Eketahuna-Woodville lino whs iit. progress it should be urged on to completion. Capital was required to develop the North Island, and without a freehold ho did not see hqw it could be raised, The defect in the scheme of Special Settlement Associations was that the union only substituted until the land was allocated, when the band of unity fell to pieces, and the occupier had then to deal direct with the Government. Regret was expressed that the Chamber, had again been doomed to disappointment in its hope that Parliament would pass a bankruptcy law, Very little amendment was needed in the Bill of last session, and reform was absolutely necessary. Personally he waß still of opinion that the Land and Income Tax was a very harmful one to the general progress of the Colony. An effort had been made without avail to get an authoritative statement as to whether or not debentures were to be taxed.' Of course the new Agent-General had stated that debentures were not to be taxed, and if this were true tho Government should, without delay, take steps-,to allay the prevalent fear and irritation on. the, eubjeot '= by- - declaring : that the Agent-General's statement on the subject .was correct. As regards .tho Chicago Exhibition, it was hard to know how the Government' were,driving. ■ Mr Gordon, of the Mines Department, who had been, deputed to' collect, mining exhibits, had given him to understand, in the Course, of- conversation, that the idea was not so much to havo personal exhibits as to have eshihits representa» tive of districts generally. It seemed to him that if New Zealand was to be represented at all it must be done by the people paying the cost, as the: Government did not appear to be at all disposed. to be. liberal in the matter. He noticed, however, that if the people would , find the money necessary I the Government were prepared to £SOOO additioridl—for what purpose it was hard, to. Bay.- Possibly to 'exhibit a Minister who could stand an unlimited number ofbaaquels. The Chicago Exhibition was worth to litem halt a dozen local Exhibitions, as affording means to extend the foreign markets for our goods, Some of these were greatly fancied at Home, Petone rugs, for instance. With reference to the Direct Mail Service he hoped members were a3 irritated on this score as he was himself.. It was almost impossible to foretell how tho mails would come and go. They arrived and went rather unexpectedly. Tho President went on to deal with tke statistics of exports and imports. Looking for the cause'of the decrease of exports for 1891 to the extent of £850,000, as compared with 1890, he found that Wellington shewed a fall* ing off at the rate of 17 per cent,, arising mainly through a short fall of wool (£50,000), specie (£129,000, which was merely a bank movement), and hemp (£65,000). Tho clip of wool was large, and therefore the falling off must be set down to decrease in value. The decrease in hemp was the most to be regretted, as it meant so much lesa labour employed. The excess of exports over imports had decreased by £480,000, as compared with previous years. After showing how trade followed the flag by pointing out that the bulk ot%r trade was done with Englrfnd, the President passed on to deal with frozen meat trade. It had received a cheok owing to (1) a falling off in quality; (2) larger competition from outsiders; and (3) excessive shipments. If, however, shippers would only keep up to a high and uniform standard of quality New Zealand frozen meat would never fail to meet with ready sale. Notwithstanding the drain upon our stock to keep up those shipments, our stock of sheep was steadily increasing. The increase in 1891 was 683,579 over 1890, the bulk of the inorease being in the North Island. New Zealand's shipments of wool, too, had amounted up to the end ot June last to 808,674 bales, which was a big item in the total Australasian export of 1,619,830 bales. The fall in prices, chiefly, affecting merinos—was at present a serious matter. Still, better timps were ahead, As for trade generally the lessening number of bankruptcies showed that it was in a sound state, and this condition of things had been largely brought about, by a Bystem of short credits, which had caused the 4th of the month to be no longer a day to be dreaded. The President concluded by mentioning that the Chamber had joined the Decimal Association during the year, and by returning thanta for the help he bad received during his year of office,