The Daily Telegraph. MONDAY, MAY 14, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3691, 14 May 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. MONDAY, MAY 14, 1883.

It may be taken for granted that, as a "•encral rule, the Government do not make the conditions of a contract more binding than its necessary. In dealing with public money for specific purposes no loop-hole of escape from the due performance of the service agreed upon should be permitted. In the case, however, of the '' direct steam sevvicp,". for which tenders have been invited, the New Zealand Government appear to have laid dojvn conditions too stringent for acceptance. Up to last week, as the Agent-General cabled fclie Government, no tender had been received. There arc plenty of ship owners and steamship companies able to do the work required without adding to their plant, but not one has come forward. The stumbling block, the Canterbury Press supposes lies m t no conditions. ""Under those conditions the whole management and control of the contracting conpany's business would practically %o in the bauds of the represeatatrvo

of the Government in London. He would have had it in his paper to order the steamers about as he pleased, by sending them into dock for inspection. He "would have had the virtual appointment of the . ship's officers and crew; or Avhat would"! have amounted to nearly the same thing , , he would have had it in his power to negative the employment of any officer to whom he had an objection. It is quite evident that it would have been practically impossible to conduct tho large business connected with the despatch of a monthly line of first-class steamers from England and New Zealand, if those entrusted with, the management of the enterprise wore to be hampered with the numerous petty restrictions which a compliance with tho conditions laid down by the Government would have involved. Therefore no one need be surprised to learn that the £20,000 a year has not been sufficient to induce the New Zealand Shipping Company to bind themselves down to observe these conditions." The Auckland Star is of the opinion that the article in the Press, from which we have made the above extract, was " inspired," and thinks that there must be some reason in the conditions imposed by the Agent-General for neither the New Zealand Shipping Company nor the Shaw Savill Albion Company putting in tenders for the service. Possibly tho Press docs treat the question from a Christchurch point of view, seeing that the former company has its head-quarters in that city. The Star then says that " what gives plausibility to our theory of ' inspiration ' with regard to our contemporary's article is that it proceeds to advocate the relaxation of some of the conditions, and hints at the possibility of coming to a private arrangement with the Shipping Company for the taking up of the contract. There speaks the roico of private interest, in language unmistakably plain. It seems to us from a dispassionate view of the question, that there is very little need for making any arrangement. The object of the subsidy was not so much to get Government immigrants and cargo carried at certain privileged rates, as it was to secure the establishment of a commercial service of steamers between New Zealand and the Mother Country. This object has been achieved, much more speedily and effectually than even tho sanguine Mr Macandrew could have dared to hope; twoY rival Company's are in the steam trade between hero and London, with tho sure prospect of at least one of them being permanently established; and our Government may find the saving of £20,000 not a bad set-off against tho loss of control of the service and the disadvantage of having to make a special contract for the conveyance of cargo and immigrants." In discussing this subject we do not wish it to be understood that any such arrangement as that made by the Berry Government, on behalf of the colony of Victoria, with the P. and O. Company, for the conveyance of tho mails via Colombo and Suez, is one that should be copied. That arrangement is about as bad as could have been made for the money paid for it. The New Zealand Government has not made that but the numerous restrictions imposed in the terms of the proposed contract, coupled with the low price to be paid for the passages of immigrants, whose wholesale conveyance would, have seriously injured the first-class passenger traffic, have had tho result that not one of the wealthy shipping companies has tendered for the service.