The Evening Star. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1871.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 346, 17 February 1871, Page 2

The Evenin g Star.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1871.

" It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest" is an adage that must be on the tip of many a tongue on reading the last few leading articles in our contemporary the Evening News. Mr. Vogel may be all that the disappointed and distempered imagination of the gloomy manager of that publication may picture, but the efforts he has made for the benefit of New Zealand in the matter of the trans-Pacific mail service would induce most minds to; condone much, if any thing was to be condoned. If the Colonial Treasurer has driven too hard a bargain, it was for New Zealand he was striving. Aud should that bargain be repudiated, any one not an \ enemy to New Zealand should not rejoice. From the first inception of the project, New Zealand has had heavy odds to fight against. Fiji is almost on the direct line from Honolulu to Sydney, and even Auckland, much more the other parts of New Zealand, a considerable divergence. Had Australia taken the lead in the establishment of the line, New Zealand would have been, as was intended in America, "left out in the cold." By dint of sheer dogged persistence, New Zealand has held hitherto the vantage ground originally seized by her bold policy. Australia is now awake to the importance of the traffic, tho value of which New Zealand has proved. A strenuous effort will be made to wrest from New Zealand her well won advantages, and at the moment when all New Zealand is watching with bated breath the progress of negociations, our local contemporary, out of the dismal depths of his disappointed spirit, howls out hurrah ! at supposing New Zealand to have lost the first fall in the struggle. That the battle had to be fought in Washington as well as in Auckland was known to most. And that it was necessary for Mr. Vogel to proceed thither as rapidly as he could, in order not to lose the advantages obtained, was admitted by all those who took the trouble to enquire into the circumstances. But that the contract has been repudiated by Webb and Company, as alleged by our contemporary, is simply a pure fabrication. That some concessions may have to be made in a bargain which was almost too good for New Zealand, is not impossible, and after the burst of enthusiasm that hailed the announcement of the contract in every part of New Zealand, such concessions, if necessary, will be freely sanctioned by colonists. Everyone has not the melancholy spirit of our contemporary, nor met with such a contemptuous rebuff from the Colonial Treasurer ; nor is the public generally impelled by such implacable animosity against that gentleman as to ignore the efforts he has made in this cause. Our contemporary, with bitter mockery of our efforts for New Zeajlajltd, says:—" Mr. Hezekiah Hall has

been busy in running away with the | bread and butter of both parties. He j has got the Honolulu subsidy, aud] will run bis boats, or rather the Aus-! tralian Steam Navigation Company's boats, on that and the subsidy promised by Sydney, Brisbane, aud Melbourne, on the line from Honolulu, if not from San Francisco, to Sydney direct, calling at Fiji, and not at Auckland for the present, by the way." This boasting is premature, inasmuch as it is based on untruth. For, as we published yesterday, the aid on which Mr. Hall calculated has been cut away from him by the purchase of the interest of Brenham aud Holloday in the •Australian traffic by Mr. "Webb. Without the aid of the North Pacific Transportation Company Mr. Hall could never have contracted with New Zealand. And now with that company and the new company, both supported by enormous American subsidies to oppose, Mr. Hall may try the service if he can. Doubtless there are plenty of American firms who would " jump at a good thing." But what prospect of its being such will be presented by Mr. Hall's proposals ? Whether or not Mr. Webb repudiates the New Zealand contract, he will run his boats. By the side of them, no company such as Mr. Hall's influence can form would hope for the slightest success. Such company would have Webb's boats and those of the North Pacific Company to share the traffic between San Francisco and Honolulu. And for the smaller traffic between the Hawaian Islands and Australia it would have abundance of w rork in competing with the Nebraska, Nevada, aud Dakota. In any case, therefore, our contemporary need not take consolation in the prospect of Mr. Hall diverting the trade from Auckland. And that branch of the subject may be in future shelved. His only comfort can be iv the utter failure of Mr. Yogel's negotiations, and in the boats of Mr. Webb's Company taking Fiji, and not Auckland, on the way. We are happy to say that there is nothing whatever as yet to indicate that such will occur ; and though concessions may have to be made respecting these immense vessels making the various ports on the New Zealand coast, the main features of the contract will remain intact. We are confident that every one of any party in Auckland, having Auckland interests at heart, however differing on questions of general policy, wishes hearty success to the Colonial Treasui-er in his mission to Washington. And none but a diabolical spirit could rejoice in indications of falure in an enterprise with which the commercial interests of this city are so bound up. Our contemporary may sneeringly say, " We deeply sympathise with those called upon to suffer such bitter pangs of disappointment over the failure of the Neilson-cum-Vogel mail contract." But we do not hesitate to say that such a failure would send a pang of real disppointment through the commercial heart of Auckland, aud would be deplored as the heaviest calamity that has befallen our interests for many a day. And though it is our contemporary's policy at present to pander to the loafers who usurp the name of " working men," the interests of our merchants and commercial men are too much bound up with tbe welfare of the whole community for us to ignore them or sneer at their regrets. Our contemporary boasts of this kind of thing as " proper journalism." It is doubtless bold to fling sneering defiance at " bankers, merchants, commission agents, newspaper proprietors, members of Parliament, place-holders, and place-seekers, or whatever else they may be." It is very fine to be independent; but was it proper independence in journalism to have fanned his thunder with cheques regularly received from one of the candidates in the Parnell election? Our contemporary knows full well the power that rang those " peals from Parnell." He knows what feathers made those free trade darts fly; and what is more, he knows that we know it too. Whatever else our contemporary may say, let him not tempt us to speak of " independence in journalism."