The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-03-14 00:00:00

AUSTRALIA.

The Wooloomooloo, Captain Ross, has arrived
in the Downs. She sailed from Sydney on the
18th of December, and has made the run in
eighty-four days, and brings the following pas-
sengers:—Mrs. Ross, Dr. R. N. Row, Messrs. C
H Salmon, Cruikshank, Thomas, Towns, and T.
Lavers. Her cargo consists of 1.860 bales wool,
thirty casks, 116 hides, twenty-casks tallow, 1,761
bags copper ofe, 310 bags kauri gum, twelve tons
bones, one octave wine, 210 sheepskins, fifty-eight
packages sundries.
The following vessels were loading for London,
and advertised to sail as under :—Ellenborough,
20th; Dunbar, 20th; Nineroud, 28th December.
Light of the Age and Vimeira, 15th January; La
Hogue, 10th February.
The public business disposed of in the New
South Wales Legislature, was of dome importance.
In the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Donaldson had
obtained leave to bring in a bill to authorise the
Government to borrow the suna of £130,4by
the issue and sale of Government Debentures saf
a like amount falling due in 1857, and also a bill to
postpone for one yeztr, the operation of the Hunter
River Tonnage Duty Act, A series of resolutions
had been introduced on the House going into
Committee of supply, affirming that a reduction of
£70,000 ought to be made in the police expenditure
for 1857, and after debate, the house divided, and
the ministry narro.vly escaped a defeat, the
motion being negatived by a majority of only two.
Mr. Donaldson had moved a series of resolutions
regarding the coinage. They were
1. That the highly satisfactory reports of the Master of
the Royal Mint to the Commissioners of her Majesty's
Treasury upon the coins already struck in the Sydney
branch of the .R iyal Mint show indisputably that as entire
confidence can be placed in their integrity as in that of the
coin struck in.the parent establishment in London. 2. That
an address be presented to the Governor General, request-
ing his Excellency to biting under the favourable considera-
tion of her Majosty's GovernMent the expediency of adopt-
ing immediate measures for rendering the gold coin struck
in the Sydney branch of the Royal Mint a legal tender in
all parts of her Majesty's dominions, either by permitting
the use of the Imperial dies, or in such other manner as
may be deemed expedient.
The naval estimates for the year had been cut
down to the sum of " one shilling,' The sum of
000 had been passed for the immigration
department.
Intelligence had been received at Sydney of the
safe arrival at Port Curtis of the North Australian
expedition. The Sydney Morning Herald, of the
the 17th December, says.:—
Our last report respecting, the movemlnts of the party
was received through Caphin Gourlay, late of the Tom
Tough, which vessel was wrecked at the Victoria River.
Mr. A. C Gregory, the leader of the expedition ; H C.
Gregory, assistant; F. Mueller, botanist ; J. R. Elsey,
urr,g,eon ; W. Wan, J. Bowman, and J. Melville, working
men, left the Victoria River on 21st June, taking with
-hem five months' provisions, with the intention of
making Albert River, Gulf of Carpentaria, where it
was understood a vessel would be in waiting to furnish
them with further sunplies, failing which Mr. Gregory
proposed pushing on direct for Moreton Bay. We are
now happy to state that the whole of the party have safely
arrived at Messrs. Leith Hay's station on the Fitzroy
river. They were all in excellent health, and their horses
in capital condition. Hay's station is about 180 miles west
of Port Curtis, and 300 miles from Moreton Bay, for which
place the party would proceed at once, so that their arrival
may be looked for by the next steamer from that port.
The negotiations for an assimilation of the tariffs
of the three colonies of New South 'Wales, Victoria,
and South Australia have, for the present, come to
a pause. An official correspondence on the subject
has been going on between the three Govern-
ments, which we find published in the Adelaide
journals, and from which it appears that the
tariff proposed by Victoria for general
adoption would prove so serious a loss to
South Australia that the Governor of that
colony hesitates to adopt it, and prefers to remit
the whole question to the consideration of the new
Parliament. which will not meet till the middle of
the year 1857. The correspondence commences
with a letter from the Colonial Secretary of Vic-
toria, dated 28th July last, in which he describes
the existing differences between' the tariffs, and'
propounds a model one for common adoption.
To this letter a reply was forwarded from South
Australia on the 28th September, in which the
Colonial Secretary for that colony, as instructed by
the Governor, demurs to the proposed tariff. The
loss to the revenue by its adoption would not be
three per cent., as stated by Mr. Haines, but sixteen
per cent., or one-sixth of the entire Customs'
revenue; and he subjoins figures to prove this. This
he considers too great a sacrifice to make for Mere
uniformity. The ad valorem duties, too, he
defends as equitable in principle, and not found
objectionable in practice, and very convenient for
South Australia, though it may be ill adapted
for Victoria: Though not prepared to assent to
Mr. Haines' proposal, he declines to make any
counter propositions, but avows the anxiety of his
Government to see a common tariff adopted, and
its willingness to confer and co-operate to that
end. At the same time he deprecates remitting
the question to the light house conference, alleging,
not unfairly, that delegates who may be very fit to
discuss the question of light houses may be by no
means the fittest persons to discuss the arrrange-
ment of tariffs. The Colonial Secretary of Victoria
replied to this communication on October 18th.
Admitting some force in the objections made,
he unhesitatingly states that there is no reason-
ab'e probability of ad valorem duties ever being
adopted by Victoria, and that, therefore, if South
Australia is resolved to abide by them, an abso-
lute uniformity of tariffs will be impossible. To
meet the difficulty he suggests that South Aus•
tralia might retain its special ad 'valorem duties
on .articles untaxed by the other colonies, but
join in fixing the same duties on articles which
they all agreed to tax. At any rate, if not
approving of this suggestion, he asks the South
Australian Government to make some definite
-counter proposition, so that the matter might be
definitively brought to an issue.
The rest of the correspondence refers to the
collection of duties on goods carried up the
Murray. At present these duties are levied
according to the South Australian tariff, and
collected at Port Elliott, the proceeds being
equally divided- between New South Wales and
Victoria, with a deduction only of five per cent
to pay for the cost of collection. The duties on
some articles are so much less by the South
Australian tariff that it has paid to send tobacco,
for instance, from Melbourne all the way up the
Murray and back by land to Melbourne again, to
the great detriment of the revenue. As much as
£lOOO, it is said, has been lost to the revenue by
the cargo of a single steamer. The Victorian Go-
vernment is naturally anxious to put a stop
to such a losing arrangement. But Sir Richard
Mae Donnell declines to accede to the proposal
made. He was willing to equalise the duty on
tobacco so as to remove the greatest grievance,
and had prepared a bill for that purpose ; but as
that falls short of what is demanded,
he has withdrawn, it for the present. He
declines to collect duties on river' borne goods
according to two different tariffs, on the
ground that he could not perform the
duty satisfactorily, as the false entries and
smuggling referred to by Mr. Donaldson would be
inevitable. If New South Wales and Victoria wish
to levy higher duties than are levied in South
Australia on goods carried up the river they must
place custom houses on the frontier, and collect
the duties themselves. He declines to do it for
them. The simplest way of getting over the
difficulty would of course be for South Australia
to raise its scales of duties to equal that of Victoria.
In the particular matter of tobacco, Sir Richard
Mac Donnell is willing to do this ; but as•to raising
the tariff generally, he hesitates, his advisers
recommending that the determination of so serious
an alteration should be left to the new Parliament
—a delay which they allege will not be practically
injurious, since the Parliament will meet in April,
and therefore in time to consider the question
prior to the opening of the navigation in 1857, and
so the matter rests at present.
The friends of railway progress in New South
Wales had been gladdened by the announcement
4t the gover4ment /40 doterminod to ro4ite