New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JULY 10, 1577.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5084, 10 July 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JULY 10, 1577.

Bob the fourth time the Lyttelton Times has published an article upon the duplicate cable question ; for the fourth time it has had its small joke about Mr. McLean and the Sydney Conference ; for the fourth time, almost repeating the words with which it started, it has charged that the failure during 1873 to secure, in London, an arrangement for a duplicate cable between India and Australia, as well as a cable from Australia lo New Zealand, came from “the influence of penny wisdom and pound folly, and of the overweening egotism of Sir Julius Vogel.” When the Lyttelton Times first made this charge, we replied that it was not warranted by anything in the Parliamentary papers; when it was repeated, we said that if the Times had authority other than those papers, that authority ought to be disclosed. Now, we say that the Times has not disclosed such other authority ; we reassert that its charge has not been, and is not, supported by one word of evidence ; and we are compelled to suppose that it is meant to repeat the unfounded statements until some calculated effect has resulted from the prejudice such statements are fitted to create. The Lyttelton Times is pleased, for the purpose of attributing blame to Sir Julius Vogel, to treat him as “ solely responsible ” for the negotiations with the Eastern Extension Company ; and it persistently writes of his having “broken off” the negotiations with Messrs. Siemens Brothers. It is impossible to believe that the Times seriously thinks there was such sole responsibility ; and as to Messrs. Siemens, we repeat that the printed papers prove conclusively that they made demands for modified terms which necessarily stopped negotiations with them. The Times reprints evidence given by Mr. Aiidley Coote at the Sydney Conference. It can safely be left to Sir Daniel Cooper and Sir Julius Vogel to answer that evidence, so far as they may think necessary. The form in which the evidence is published is no doubt strange; for Mr. Audley Coote is made to speak of what “ we ” did, and said, and saw, as though he personally shared in, or managed, the negotiations on behalf of Messrs. Siemens Brothers. We have heard that Mr. Coote was not in London during these negotiations. Is it true that he was not there ?

The Kmesreprints from letters published in a Parliamentary paper of last session ; and says, or implies, that it was “ only when the golden opportunity had gone,” that the importance of securing a duplicate cable from India was properly recognised by the Governments of New South Wales and New Zealand. Could anything more absurd be written ? The importance of the second cable was throughout recognised. To secure it, was a main object of the negotiations in 1873 ; the New Zealand Act ratifying the provisional agreement then made, provided first for such duplication, plus a New Zealand cable, and only permitted negotiations for the single cable after failure to secure the greater work. But no doubt the Times well knows that though a statement may be absurd it may still be an effective prejudice-worker. What the Times has throughout refused to recognise is, that it was clearly impossible, in 1875, to get effect given to Mr. Coote’s 1873 arrangement ; that it was impossible to get the work contemplated by that arrangement undertaken except at a cost, immediate and future, enormously in excess of that offered, by Mr. Coote in 1873, accepted by the representatives of New South Wales, Queensland, and New Zealand, endorsed by Messrs. Siemens Beds., and embodied in Acts by the three Legislatures. Whatever may now be supposed or pretended, there cannot be a doubt but those Legislatures would, at the end of 1875, have refused to accept either Messrs. Siemens’s then terms, or those of any of the other offerers. There was not then a great war raging, with a possible gigantic extension of it : there did not exist any of the justifiable anxiety for news from Europe which now exists ; and the price asked for the two cables would assuredly have been considered excessive. If a reference back to the Governments had taken place in 1876, two tilings may be regarded as certain— Australia would have still been, as she is, dependent upon a single cable from India; and New Zealand would have been receiving, about twice a week, European news some ten days old ! The Times is determined, however, to complain : so it ignores what might have been the fate of New Zealand, and it prates about advantages which it thinks would have been secured, if something had been done in 1875 which those engaged in the negotions agree in declaring to have been impossible !