SMALL FARM PRODUCE.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 715, 16 January 1877, Page 3

SMALL FARM PRODUCE.

A Vituperative Baraster. —We leain from a contemporary that Mr G E Barton is determined to make a blaze m Wellington. The following is an ex* ♦r«ot from a 'characteristic address he recently made m the Police Court when defending a client on a criminal charge : "Am I to be hounded down m this Court, handin this town, for saying that he ought to be committed as a scoundrel who has purged himself ? Even if I had mipped this man with a lash of scorpions would 1 have been guilty of more than turning him out of the Temple of Truth? I defend my conduct. I bad n right. to turn round and ask thai; your Worbipa should commit the scoudrel for perjury. It is done frequently, and ought to be done more frequently with some classes of witnesses. But I will not deal further with the evidence for the prosecution. It elites me to much. I will refer to the evidence for the defence, which has been most unfairly surpreesed by the papers.', In other parts of his address he spoke of the prosecutor as a. ruffian, an inhuman brute, a lyinc; scoundrel. Thb followng Oakahd, whioh originated with the 'Taranaki Herald,' m going the rounds of the press :— ' At the | request of, the natives, the s s Waitara entered the Mokau on Thursday morning, the 14th of December. The object of the natives m sending for the vessel was that the goods brought to the Mokau by Europeans, for the purpose of trade, might be sent back to the European settlement. The party who went m the steamer were oivily received by the chief Wetere and his people, but Wetere remonstrated with them for sending the steamer to the river on three previous occasions without his leave. The chief asked how much the Europeans would charge to take the stores back to Waitara, to which they replied they would take them for £40: After a time Wetere said, 'If we should employ you to trade on the river, how muoh per ton would you charge for freight ?' To this the Europeans replied, 'About thirty shillings!' 'flow is it then,' said the chief, ' that you ask £40 to remove the goods ?' This question was a poser, but the Europoat* replied that they could not take the goods without the consent of the owners, or they would be rendering themselves liable to a charge of theft. The goods were brought to the margin of the river, but at the solicitation of an old woman they were removed baok to the store. The Europeans were then told that f they brought .the steamer into the river again without the leave of the chiefs Wetere and Fakukohatu ' she would be burned, and that they would not be answera le for the lives of her crew," We now learn that there is no truth whatever m the report of the steamer that visited Mokau beidg threatened to be burnt by the natives. The steamer was sent by Commissioner Parris, at the request of the natives, to take away a European whe was permitted by a section of the Mokau natives to live there, the King having ordered his removal. Hence the steamer's visit. The natives carried his boxes, &0., to the steamer, but the European refused to pay hi* passage, consequently the steamer: left without him The man's wife wishes to keep him at Mokau.

A good deal baa been said and Imfcten about the backwardness oi small lettlers m prodaoiag butter, eggs, cheese jacon, and other farm produce for. eon*.; gumption at the local markets. The answer to this is very simple. It will not (jay to grow more than we can dispose of to private customers, and m the case of •latter at this time of year scarcely then. Butter used to fetch a fair price m Auck)md until the last two or three years, 'tot storekeepers have combined to keep be price down finding that it pays them ■fetter to sell at a low figure, as whether faey sell at 2s or Is the lb, the* difference letween the wholesale and retail price, tieir profit is the same. Ihe T . call thus Tork on less oapital and of course do a Irger trade— at our expense. But, sir, te real difficulty consists m the large trofit the middleman insists on having, fancy 3d on every dozen of egg and on «rery pound of butter, where perhaps a dngle outlay of a shilling oapital is coi♦rood. The farmer must invest m land, md cattle before he can produce butter, ieep his cows milking and dry, make flaves of his family, and then the middlenan who simply negotiates the sale between producer and consumer and who toms his money ©ye* scores of time 6 m a -far is to carry off 25 per cent of the bard •wned produce of the farmer. I was Much struck with this on lately taking up I Taranaki paper sent me by a friend, happened to contain the buying aid selling prices of the New Plymouth ftarket. The difference been the two m latter and eggs and bacon is only one •Jinny, m cheese and ham, two pence per b. If this were so m the Auckland pro<ince, both m Auckland and^the local markets, farmers would be fouttd^pt witeso backward m growing dairy andT ■iner produce as they are.— l am, &c, <DOKATOO. i4l . „„■ * TeAwamutu, Jan 13th, 1870.