Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 999, 22 April 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1871.

The actual state of the contract for the mail seivice via San Francisco at present is a very doubtful matter. During the past month the public have been amused by the extensive publication of a repudiated contract, and one too that was well enough known to be repudiated fry the principals thereto on the arrival of the mail before last. This repudiated contract was even published in the advertising columns of the Auckland press, and the organs in the Government interest made much capital out of it, averring that if Mr Yogel had made some concessions he had secured more than their equivalent in a reduced sub sidy and other advantages. The ports of call were to be the same as in the previous contract, which had been repudiated on that very account. It could not fail to strike any onlooker that it was a most singular thing that Messrs. Webb and Holladay should repudiate a contract made by their authorised agent on the ground that its conditions were ultra vires, and at about the same time ratify another, contain ing almost identical conditions.; y©o this is what the New Zealand public were requested to believe and to rejoice over for one month. Now that another mail has come the repudiation is tacitly admitted, but we are once more to be amused by the information that the third (!) contract made by Mr Yogel with Mr Webb at Washington is reported as differing but slightly from Mr Stewart's,— allowing the repudiation of the second as a mere matter of d ."■>•'.■ K.' •.. ••' • ■■ ■■ purse.

The question niay well be asked—Does there even now exist any real contract? The fact appears to be that: the coastal service—which, by the way, has been shown to be illegal—is the great bugbear, and the steamer which was to leave San Francisco on the Bth of thjs and proceed to Port Chalmers, is, in fact, on but a trial trip, on the results of which will depend the ratification or repudiation of this third contract.