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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4437, 9 June 1875, Page 2

We print elsewhere, from a special correspondent, the concluding words of a leading article which appeared in yesterday’s Auckland Southern Cross. We have no doubt that they refer to a species of programme, on the part of the Government, which has appeared, and which, as a work of supererogation, announced that it was neither “inspired” nor “authoritative,” thus, indeed, inviting attention to the fact that in all probability it was both. For ourselves, we may say that wo thoroughly endorse every word which we are informed our contemporary has uttered, although we believe that there was really no necessity for uttering them, as we considered that the authority by which the programme was said not to have been inspired, and the vehicle used for its promulgation, deprived it of all weight, and made it quite undeserving of notice.

We have kept our readers tolerably well acquainted with the various stages of a question which has excited the wrath of a very limited section of the Dunedin public, but has been made as much fuss over by tho Dunedin papers as if it had involved consequences of import to the world. It will be seen by our telegrams that this question received a partial solution in the Otago Provincial Couhoil on Monday night, when the Ocean Beach and Peninsula Railway Bill was rejected, and opinions were expressed by its opponents exactly in accord with the true state of the case. We have not much to say now on this matter, having tolerably well exhausted it already. But we must notice that, despite all the fuss made by tho promoters of this lino and their advocates, not one of them drew tho attention of the Minister of Works to the matter when ho was last in Dunedin. Was the reason for this that it would perhaps have been inconvenient to have drawn the attention of any practical man in office to tho great work of private enterprise, which was only waiting tor rails to become quite a wonderful railway ? It would have been unpleasant, perhaps, to have let Mr. Richardson, a gentleman who wouW not look at the'

worka through the medium of a champagne luncheon and sparkling speeches, see that, in point of truth, the great works were, if report speaks truly, on a par with a hastily made swamp road, and that, as a matter of fact, the road was not there for the rails to lie on. So far, however, the affair is now settled. It may be that the promoters mil come to the House of Representatives, where they assuredly will fare worse than they did in their own little parliament at Dunedin. Whatever may eventuate, however, we think that the Hon. Mr. Richardson deserves the best thanks of the community for having, by his decided action in this affair, prevented the encouragement by Government of an effort to make money at the expense of the country. A MOST curious item is supplied in our telegraphic intelligence from Dunedin. It is there stated that an effort will be made in connection with the Committee on Foreign Loans of the British House of Commons, to inquire into the circumstances connected with the issue of New Zealand Loans. We can explain the origin of this mutter in a few words. The World, a new weekly paper which has let light into much of the villainous darkness that overshadowed English Finance, notices that the Committee on Foreign Loans has shown that the system under which certain foreign loans have been negotiated in England, has been a mere mass of swindling by impecunious scamps, and that for much of this the Stock Exchange is responsible, the committee of that body not allowing a settlement to loans except under circumstances by Which, in many cases, a direct and unfair profit accrues to members. Thus it was that a settlement was refused to the last New Zealand Loan. But the World speaks out plainly in this respect, and says, “ And now a few words to the august committee of the Stock Exchange. If you really suppose that you will inspire confidence by refusing to Messrs. Rothschild a settlement for a New Zealand loan, you are mistaken ; considering the worthless dross for which you have given settlements and quotations, it is a piece of stupendous impudence on your parts to inflict a stigma upon one of the most respectable of our colonies.”