SHOP PRICES. On acting as Trustee under assignmen lected and disbursed) On granting Letters of Credit INTEREST. (on amount col On Advances, including disbursements for Freight, Duty, or On Accounts Current, per annum. RE-EXCHANGE. 10 353 cent. 10 ;; On Inter-colonial Bills dishonoured (exclusive of notarial charges). 5 On Bills on any of the Australian Colonies (notarial charges) 7 On English and Foreign Bills (with notarial charges, postages, &c.) On Local Bills dishonoured CHARGES. Receiving and stowing General Merchandise and Produce (excepting Wool) per ton Receiving, Weighing, Marking, and Delivering Wool per bale Storage on Goods and Liquids (by weight or measurement) per ton per week Storage on Wool-Full-size Bales, per week, each Yard Storage, per ton, per week. N. B.-Draft to be allowed on Wool at the rate of 1lb. per cwt. RETAIL SHOP PRICES OF ARTICLES OF DOMESTIC It should be remarked that this list applies chiefly to town dwellers ; country settlers on land generally produce all they require except groceries, and buy these more by wholesale, i. e., two or three families join and buy half-a-dozen bags of sugar, or a chest of tea, at some auction sale. Groceries and imported merchandise of all sorts are frequently sold by auction in the Colonies, and the auctioneer is far more closely allied with the merchant and trader in Australia and New Zealand than he is in England. Some of these articles are always a little dearer, some a little cheaper in one settlement than in another; but, taken as a whole, these prices fairly represent the present average prices of the chief articles of domestic consumption for the Colony, generally, when bought retail at the shops. The retail prices of clothing, hardware, and the common articles of British manufacture sold in the shops, together with hotel and boarding-house charges, house-rent, and hire of apartments are, perhaps, about 50l. per cent. higher than in England. riding horse, ditto 10s. 20s. A family of half a dozen members, having their own cottage, and 10 to 20 acres of land under cultivation, as a little garden furm, might now live comfortably enough in many parts of New Zealand on an income of from 801. to 100l. a year. STIPENDS AND SALARIES.-The stipends of the clergy and of the ministers of the various religious denominations in New Zealand are but small, varying, I should say, from 150l. to 250l. a year. Many of the clergy, however, have little glebe farms, and appear, for the most part, to live with their families in a state of rude and easy plenty. The missionaries, indeed, who, whatever may be their political faults, are good Samaritans, and most hospitable hosts in the "Bush," have ever been remarkable STIPENDS-SALARIES-WAGES. 355 for keeping a bounteous table; and many a Bush traveller, sick of eel, and dried fish, pig, and pigeon, has discovered that a mission station is quite as pre-eminent for good cheer as for long prayer. The salaries given to clerks and shopmen are low. Indeed, there is but a small demand for emigrants of this class, inasmuch as the principals of our young mercantile houses and trading establishments are, for the most part, active young men ; or men with families, who can manage their little concerns almost without help. I regret that, for the benefit of any fair readers of the governess class, I cannot quote the rates of the educational salaries in New Zealand. I think I may say, however, that a young lady going out with introductions, competent to give her pupils a good, plain English education, and one who, now and then helping the mistress in the kitchen, the maid in the nursery, would make herself generally useful, would have no difficulty in procuring a situation in some good pastoral or agricultural Colonist's establishment; where she would be treated as a friend of the family, have a little salary of from 60%. to 70l. a year, and get plenty of fine mutton, fine scenery, and fine air. The salary may seem poor, but the life, I think, would not be unpleasant; while the statistical fact recorded at page 346 would lead us to imagine that a young lady in New Zealand, of the right stamp, would not long be left there "in maiden meditation fancy free," or suffered to remain a governess, if she aspired to become a wife. WAGES. Good farm-labourer and wife, with board and lodging £50 to £60 Good single farm-labourer do. do. Good shepherd, or handy man, accustomed to stock Good stout farm lad do. Good strong female servant Farm-labourers, per day of 9 hours Mechanics, such as carpenters, masons, painters and glaziers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shipwrights, coopers, and sawyers, per day of 8 hours 356 VALUE OF LANDED PROPERTY-POSTAGE. Owing to the great numbers of working men who have been attracted to Auckland and the north by the "forty-acre free grants," the rates of labour are at present some 20 per cent. lower there than they are in Canterbury and Otago. VALUE OF IMPROVED LANDED PROPERTY AND OF TOWN LOTS.Small suburban farms, lying within half-a-dozen miles of most of the eight provincial capitals, would now frequently realise from 157. to 201. per acre. Indeed, a farm on the Tamaki, nine miles from Auckland, sold in small lots, has lately fetched 30%. per acre. Good shops and warehouse sites in Auckland and Wellington have brought from 107. to 207. per frontage foot; the small acre and half-acre town lots, put up by auction, by the Provincial Governments, where new townships are to be laid out, will sometimes realise from 50l. to 150l. per acre; while the upset Government price lately put on some town lots, in the rising young city of Auckland, was at the rate of 8001. per acre. POSTAL REGULATIONS. Nine-tenths, probably, of all letters, papers, and book-post parcels, sent from the United Kingdom to New Zealand and Australia are now sent by what is called the Overland Mail, (a mail carried by steamers,) and leaving Southampton the 20th of every month, via Malta, Alexandria, Suez, the Red Sea, Point de Galle, and Melbourne. A small branch steamer runs from Marseilles, and catches this great monthly mail at Malta; and letters by this supplementary Marseilles route may be posted six days later they are marked "viá Marseilles," and are carried by Dover boat and French railroads down to Marseilles. The rates of postage by this supplementary route are, however, double the rates charged "via Southampton." The mails for these two routes are made up in London on the morning of the 20th of every month, viá Southampton, and on the evening of the 26th, viá Marseilles. When the 20th falls on Sunday, the mails are made up on the previous evening; and when the 26th falls on Sunday, they are made up on the following evening. All postage must be pre-paid. The New Zealand mails are due in London, viá Marseilles, about the 5th of every month; and, via Southampton, on the 12th of every month. The course of post by this route is one of from sixty-five to seventy days; so that a person in England writing to a friend in New Zealand, residing in or near one of the chief towns, might expect a reply in about five months. This is unquestionably a great advance since the days when it took as long only to get to New Zealand; but this "Suez route" is, after all, but a poor, roundabout route for New Zealand; and I trust that 'ere long the eastern colonies of our magnificent Australasian * The best mode of doing up a newspaper is to fold it rather small, tie it tightly round with string, just seal down the ends of the tie, and write the address neatly on the margin of the paper. The paper must bear no old address, nor any other pen mark save the New Zealand address; and when papers, letters, or book parcels are sealed, the following remarks from the "British Postal Guide" should always be attended to:-"The practice of sealing letters passing to and from the Australasian Colonies and India with wax (excepting such as is specially prepared) is attended with much inconvenience, and frequently with serious injury to the letters, in consequence of the melting of the wax and adhesion of the letters. In the case of mails received from Australia and India, considerable delay is occasioned; and, notwithstanding the greatest care is taken in separating the letters, which, owing to the cause already mentioned, adhere closely together, many are damaged and torn. The public are, therefore, recommended in all cases to use wafers in preference to wax in securing their letters, and also to advise their correspondents to pursue the same course.' India or "prepared wax can always be obtained of any town stationers -if not wafers, or the common gummed envelope, should be used. و" |