New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5051, 1 June 1877, Page 4

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1877.

Once upon a time, when England had "wooden walls," and justly boasted of them, when an iron ship was a thing to be sneered at and condemned, and when Sheffield rolling mills had other work than that of making armour-plates, a Surveyor of the Navy designed a ship to carry 20 guns. It is to be supposed that vessels of the class were needed : at any rate, the "lines" were sent to Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and Sheerness, and the ships were turned off the stocks by the dozen. They speedily became known as " donkey frigates ": and he who ventured to ask why, was told, '' Because they can neither fight nor run." There are newspaper writers who do for their readers what that Surveyor did for England. They have "lines" upon, which leading articles are to be constructed ; and they continue to turn off articles accordingly, though the work cannot amuse, and is not instructive. The editor of the Lyttelton Times is a bad (meaning thereby a marked) type of this class. The Times months ago produced a leader which appeared to be designed to be amusing and a little waspish about the Hon. G. McLean's being sent to the telegraph-cable Conference at Sydney; which was certainly meant to be denunciatory of Sir Julius Vooel's action as a negotiator in London for a cable or cables; and which had for its conclusion various statements as to what might or should have been done. We showed that this article was unfair, and that despite the writer's pretensions to knowingness, that which he said ought to have been accomplished was impossible. After a while, the Times rejoined—the beam or body of this article being composed of assertions that the work of the London negotiators had created a monopoly as to cables, which was calculated to be prejudicial to Australasia, and especially to New Zealand. We showed that a monopoly had been carefully guarded against. Again the Lyitelton Times was silent : but the editor has been working on the old " lines." On Monday, he published a third article on cables. Mr. McLean once more serves for an opening : the subject now being not what he may have learned in Sydney about a megohm, but what he may have written, if he has written, to the United States Government asking aid towards a cable from the westerly coast of the States—a duty which the Conference assigned to the Government of this colony. Again, the editor's opinions as to Mr. McLean's capabilities arefollowedbystatements as to the sins of Sir Julius'Vogel in London, during the early part of 1875. Still the ending has a would-be didactic turn, and an attentive people is told what they may lose and suffer if the cable between India and Australia breaks down. The Lyttelton Times, though so pretentious of knowledge, ignores facts. True, it would have been a good thing if the arrangement made in Sydney, in 1873, by Mr. Audley Cootb, on behalf of Messrs. Siemens Bkothehs, could have been carried out in 1875, and a duplicate cable from Australia to Singapore could have been secured, in addition to one from Australia to New Zealand. It is useless now to inquire whether Mr! Coote, in I his anxiety to secure business for his prin- [ cipals, agreed to terms which were not likely to prove payable to those who found the money. Messrs. Siemens ratified Mr. Coote's action. To enable substantially such an agreement to be carried out, was the object of legislation in New South Wales, Queensland, and New Zealand ; and under that legislation, representatives of the three colonies met in London. Wo believe thoroughly that Messrs. Siemens were, by changes during the interval of two years, so placed that [ they could not carry out the agreement made by Mr. Cooie. The representatives of the colonies were, as the published correspondence shows, willing to concede all that could be conceded by them ; but when the concessions asked for had gone so far that the 'Queensland Government absolutely refused to yield upon a point, on which Sir D. Cooper and Sir J. Vogel were willing to yield, the carrying out of anything like the 1873 agreement became impossible. The state of affairs which compelled Messrs. Siemens to ask for modifications, prevented any other firm or company offering terms such as those of which the Colonial Legislatures had approved. Messrs. Siemens possess too much of the general and the special knowledge required for ensuring success in such undertakings, to have risked failure for themselves by claiming terms which would not have been claimed by business competitors. The Lyitelton Times must be supposed to have an object in reiterating that • the two cables were not obtained only because of Sir Julius Vooel's anxiety for personal glorification. The reiteration cannot influence anyone who takes trouble to look into the matter; but unfortunately few people can, or will, take that trouble. The editor's object is not of importance ; but it is important ' that the misled shall be the fewest possible.

Some of the misrepresentations of the Lytlelton Times, in this last article, require special notice. One is, that Sir Juuts Voobl "threw up so quickly the joint negotiations for the complete work," as to destroy a good chance of getting both cables. The published papers do not contain a word, so far as we can see, justifying the statement that Sir Juuu's did anything of the sort, or that any chance was neglected. If the editor writes upon authority outside the official papers, lie should disclose his authority. This misrepresentation is repeatod in the article. By a letter dated April 30th, an offer was made (not by Messrs. Siemens) to lay cables between Normanton and Macassar and Macassar and Singapore ; and the Times says that the Now Zealand cable "could easily have boon included, had not Sir Julius Vouei, prematurely closed all joint negotiations."* What is the fact.' Thirty-seven days before the date of this offer (namely on March 24th) the representative of Queensland retired from the negotiations with Messrs. Siemens, by direction of his Government, the direction being given because Messrs. Siemens wanted a particular modification, which that Government would not yield. It was then, and therefore, that "joint negotiations" on behalf the three colonies were interrupted. It is really puzzling, why the Li/ttallon Time* insists that the two cables could have been arranged for, in 1875, under the authority given to the representatives. In their first letter dealing with the question (Fobruary 25th), Messrs. Siemens say that the terms of the Sydney provisional agreement "do not offer enough encouragement to capitalists to subscribe funds towards the undertaking." '

The three representatives having submitted to the Telegraph Construction Company the authorised terms, the Managing Director replies (April 7th), that, upon them, '' it would not be possible to raise the capital necessary to carry out this great operation." The Lyttelton Times says that the offer of the India Rubber, Gutla Percha, &c, Co. (the one already mentioned as dated April 30th), "presented a substantial basis for negotiations, and we fully believe that if a little time and care had been devoted to them, they would have resulted in a very favorable contract." Look again at the facts. The power given to the representatives was to carry out an agreement containing this clause: —".-£12,000 per annum to be allowed to cover in full all expenses : all receipts above £12,000 to pass in reduction of the guarantee." This allowance was for two cables—New Zealand to New South Wales, and Normanton to Singapore. The guarantee was to be 5 per cent, upon not more than £1,000,000, for not more than 35 years. The offer of which the Times speaks so favorably was for the distance Normanton to Singapore only;a guarantee of 5 percent on £750,000, for 35 years, was asked, but an allowance of £34,500, instead of £12,000 only, was required before receipts passed in reduction of guarantee. Such an arrangement was totally different from that authorised, would have been greatly more costly, and the offer appears not to have been made until at least 12 days after negotiations with the Eastern Extension Co. had been begun. Messrs. Siemens, it is to be observed, actually asked for £BO,OOO ayear to be allowed to their proposed company, for the purposes which were to be covered by £12,000 under the provisional agreement. All these facts and figures are in the papers to which the Lyitelton Times refers : yet in face of them the editor (in a sentence which is scarcely intelligible), contrives to insinuate that the arrangement which was made is costly to New Zealand as compared with one that might have been made. It is easy to appear wise after the event. But suppose the negotiations in 1875 had been so conducted that, because the two cables could not be secured, upon terms fairly within the powers of the negotiators, nothing had been done : what would then have been said by the T.yttellon Times ? This, or something like it: —To New Zealand, the great object was to secure telegraphic communication with Australia. If that had been secured, we should have had daily intelligence as to the progress of the war in which England may speedily be involved, and from which New Zealand will then probably suffer. The Indian cable might break, as any cable might; but so long as it was sound we should have had news respecting the war, and our merchants would, in their trading operations, have been on an equal footing with those of Australia. But the negotiators strove after a duplication of the cable to India, so as to prevent what they called a monopoly; and by their pursuit of this comparatively insignificant object, they have doomed New Zealand to be kept out of the telegraph-girdle which encompasses the rest of the civilised world, and that, too, at a time the most critical since New Zealand was founded. For such writing there would have been justification; and such writing there would have been in plenty, could the now-wisdom of the Lyttelton Times have reached and beguiled the cable-negotiators in 1875. Oh ! the painful easiness of this pretence of knowledge. Given certain " lines," there are writers who with fatal fluency can strew about them words which take a seemly form. That, the " donkey frigates " had ; but they could " neither fight nur run." And so such writers, vapid where they would be witty, prejudiced where they apeimpartiality, anddull where they would be impressive, ever appealing each to his little world, can never truly please, praise, teach, or warn.