The Globe. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1876.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 709, 27 September 1876, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1876.

It is certainly astonishing what is said just now against Sir Julius Vogel, since his relinquishment of office and his expressed determination to reside in the old country. Of course the dictator of yesterday does not deserve all the blame which some of his exworshippers shower upon his devoted head, and the causes of complaint against him are as varied as they are numerous. We do not pretend to take up the cudgels either way, further than we have already done, when commenting upon the extraordinary and unwarrantable step taken by the late Premier in deserting his post as well the colony, in so eveutful a time as the present. But singular disclosures have lately been made, which tend to show that after all, there was always something of the charlatan in clever and brilliant Sir Julius. We refer to the remarkable case of Mr Coleman Phillips of Auckland, which formed, quite lately, the subject of special investigations at the hands of a Select Committee of the House of Representatives, which committee has since placed the result of their inquiries before the House, in the shape of a recommendation that compensation be given to Mr Phillips to the tune of some £3OO. It may be within the recollection of our readers that some years ago, Sir Julius Vogel, —fond as he always was of dazzling the House whenever it met, with some kind of startling proposals —• had brought before the Assembly the details of a gigantic scheme by which New Zealand was to secure the whole trade of the South Sea Islands. This scheme is known and is recorded in numberless pages of Hansard as the Polynesian scheme. Voluminous printed papers were brought out before the public, and the walls of the Assembly were made to re-echo again and again with Sir Julius’s vehement and lengthy declarations of how the “ Bri- “ tain of the South ” would extend her fame, he? power, and her commerce, by assisting the promotion of a gigantic company, which undertaking was to enrich beyond conception all those who invested in it. To quote the ex-Pre-mier’s own words, the whole trade of Polynesia would be secured by the company, whose operations would very soon assume enormous dimensions and rival the success of the greatest corporation of the last century, viz, the Bast India Company. Not only were

the people of New Zealand invited to take a substantial interest in this remarkable project, by investing their spare cash in the undertaking, but the colony as a whole Sir Julius suggested, should sink or swim with it, to the extent only of guaranteeing an interest of no less than five per cent upon the capital invested. Moat people, for a time looked upon this new specimen of the ex-Premier’s fertility of imagination with reverent wonder. The scheme got talked of everywhere. London papers took it up and lauded the great Vogel to the skies. His fame, then in its hobbledehoyhood, at once reached its prime. Both at Home and in Australia, it was nothing but the great Vogel here and the great Vogel there. In due course of time, however, people calmed down, the details of this South Sea bubble were closely scanned, the examination proved that it was desperately hollow, with nothing in it, and it finally burst. Now for the sequel. The Assembly the other day received a petition from the above-mentioned Mr Coleman Phillips, setting forth that “ he was the origi- “ nator of the Polynesian scheme, that “ Sir Julius Vogel had appropriated his “ ideas, utilised his time and brains for “ the purpose of putting them into suit- “ able shape for the use of the “ public and of Parliament, and “ in fact had retained him officially in “ connection with the whole matter.” For this the petitioner alleges he never received as yet any remuneration, and he therefore prayed the House to give him that which he had hitherto failed to obtain. The Public Petitions Committee, as we just stated, after due inquiry into the case, urged that Mr. Phillips should receive £l5O for his expenses in prosecuting his claim, and another like sum as the price for his invention of the “ South Sea Bubble” and his share in assisting Sir Julius to promote it. What the country may have had to disburse, directly or indirectly, in connection with this wonderful scheme, it is hard to say. There is no doubt, however, that our present Agent-General gamed more credit and achieved greater renown in England, as the supposed originator of this astounding conception, than for any other official act of his. We do not even except the inscription of New Zealand stock by the Bank of England, which, by the bye, is said to have been entirely the idea of the Rothschilds —not of Sir Julius, as he gave us to believe — and was secured by those gentlemen simply as a means to increase the value of the colonial securities upon which they advanced the Four Million Loan.