MR. H. H. HALL.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 556, 30 March 1876, Page 4

MR. H. H. HALL.

(Sydney Morning Herald.') We understand that Mr 11. H. Hail leaves Australia by this month's mail steamer, to return to America, and that his departure has been precipitated by representation? made from or through the Government to the contractors The Transpacific mail service, in addition to its other troubles, has had the misfortune to become complicated with our local political strifes. Mr Parkes, who took up warmly the scheme for a Pacific mail service, took up warmly als) with Mr Hall, as the most promising agent for carrying it out; because Mr Hall had given the most study to the matter, had acquired the most experience in connection with it, was the most ready to go to work, and of immediately available contractors was the lowest in his demands. When the temporary contract broke down, Mr Parkes was suddenly rated by his opponents in Parliament for having entered into a contract with a man without resources. It was in vain that he explained that so far as capital was concerned, he looked to the backers —to Messrs Cameron in the first instance, and afterwards to Messrs Forbes and De Bussche—and that all he trusted Mr Hall for was industry, experience, and organising power. The public was angry at the discredit and expense attending the breakdown, and was not in the mood to accept excuses. When the present Government came inio power it declared itself obliged for the public honor to take up and go on with the negotiations for the new contract which were then being conducted by the colonial representatives in England, but it has carefully abstained from a .'ingle word of praise in favor of the service itself. Everyone can understand that, when Mr Hall reappear* d as the manager of the new contract, the position of the present Government in dealing with one they had so attacked with an embarrassing one. It is not surprising that they have been stiff with him to the last degree, and that the contractus have been made to see that it is to their interest to recall him. For the present, therefore, if not finally, Mr Hall disappears from the scene of his labors. But if Australia is now to take its farewell of him, it is but the barest justice to take note of the service he has rendered. It has been said that he is not the best general who never loses a battle, but he who redeems disaster by splendid victories. Mr Hall's faults and failures have been visible to everyone. His faults are his own ; how much of his failures are due to himself, and how much to circumstances over which he had no control, is known only to those who have been behind the scenes. For the present at least, and in tha popular judgment, he must bear the whole reproach, But putting all faults and failures into one scale, we must, as a simple act of justice, put into the other what he has done. He was the pioneer of the service, and was the first man who ever ran a steamer from iSyduey to San Francisco and back. The scheme broke down because he had no adequate capital to back him, but that he had got hold of a good idea is evident from the fact that after all our experience, the very same route he th°n adopted, or at least one very near it, viz, the adoption of the Bay of Islands as the New Zealand port of call, stands out as the best scheme we can adopt so long as the New Zealand alliance is important, Mr Webb, who succeeded Mr Hall, did not achieve any greater success. The next attempt was what is known as the temporary service, which, in our j idgmont, was a ways a mistake, and but for which the permanent service under Forbes and De Bussche would probably have been a great success. But the Government of the day was urgent for it, and Mr Hall, as usual, was sanguine. Anyhow, if he had not gone to England to organise it, we should not have had at our disposal the Mongol, the Tartar, the Cyphreies, the Macgregor, and the Mikado, and without them we could not possibly have kept the service going. That service would not have been a failure, but for the losses consequent on the late arrival in Sydney of some of the boats, and the wreck of the that, Mr Hall had not gone a<?ain to America and England, we should never have seen the present contract. That contract is the result of a combination, and that combination did not come together by chauce It was the result of protracted and laborious negotiations, and the heart and soul of those negotiations was Mr Hall. Whether this contract is destined to be a succesi it is too early at present to say. Much will depend on the spirit and enterprise of the company, and on the way in which they are served at this end. But this much we may say, that there is now the fairest prospect of success, and that never before was the colony served by such a splendid fleet. Some losses there have unfortunately been, but we feel satisfied that if, looking over these to the future, the contractors go on with energy, they will before the contract closes reap a handsome reward for their enterprise. Few great undertakings in this world go off at first with a complete success. Two or three failures are the rule, and looking at the magnitude of this Pacific service, we have no reason to complain of an unfair share of mishaps incident to all such services. In this go ahead age we are perhaps naturally impatient, but fair-judging persons will make reasonable allowances, and when this great enterprise is a pronounced success—as a success it will be some day if it is not so already—the historian will not be so severe as contemporary critics have been on the mistakes and misadventures of those who laid the foundations.