THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1901.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11581, 20 February 1901, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1901.

The latest Australian suggestion in I the matter of the cable question is that a '*' joint purse'' shall be formed as between the Pacific cable; and the Eastern Extension Company's cable, out of which -''joint purse"' the Pacific should take one-fourth and the Eastern Extension three-fourths. This novel proposal appears to emanate from the Postmaster-General of I Victoria. It has been stated that, if lit is agreed to, the Victorian Government will make terms with the Eastern Extension Company and be able to secure the immediate reduction in cable rates offered by that company in return for concessions to which we have so strongly objected. What particularly concerns us is the further statement, cabled from Australia, that Mr. Seddon has agreed to this peculiar proposal, and that the Victorian Government only awaits its acceptance by Queensland. But the unmistakable utterances of Mr. J. G. Ward, our PostmasterGeneral, show that he has formed the opinion on the matter which we should expect, and indicates that the position of our Government has been strangely misunderstood on the other side. From the beginning of this dispute, our Mew Zealand Government has loyally and unhesitatingly upheld the rights of the partnership to which it belongs ;' and we have every reason to rely upon its adherence to that sound and statesmanlike policy until the cable business is carried to a satisfactory

conclusion.

In discussing this cable question it is necessary to keep constantly in mind the position which the Pacific cable scheme holds. As we recently pointed out, it really originated owing to the crushing restrictions placed upon the use of under-sea telegraphy by this very Eastern Extension Company. In this Twentieth Century, whe*n land telegraphy is in • common and every day use i throughout every civilised country, ] w'hen birthday greetings and friendly j messages are carried from end to I end of the land side by side with ; business communications and polij tical utterances, the cable message I is still prohibited to ordinary usage | and oppressively costly to those who are compelled to employ it. This cannot be gainsaid. Neither can it, be questioned that the cost of ocean telegraphy might oe enormously reduced and the usage of it as enormously increased were it conducted in the interests of the public and not in the interests of a monopoly. For when a cable is once laid it is as cheap to work it to its full capacity as to keep it mostly idle, and the growth of its business, as in penny postage and land telegraphy, is simply a question of the time required to popularise the system and accustom the public to its use. But hough this is clear, and although the design to ultimately bring the cable service within the reach of every citizen has inspired the advocates of the Pacific cable, it is very difficult to bring about a sudden change. The Pacific cable advocates had to contend from the beginning with great opposition, arising on the one hand from the ignorance of the general public, the conservatism of governments, and the short-sighted-ness of the commercial world, and on the other hand from the tireless and shrewdly-directed opposition of the Eastern Extension people. This opposition is easy to understand. Hitherto this giant monopoly has had the cable business of the Pacific in its pocket. It has been the sole owner of cables to this part of the world. It has laid cables as it liked, has charged as it liked, and has grown great and become fabulously wealthy by virtue of its monopoly. The Pacific cable scheme had to be based upon business lines, owing to the disinclination of the co-operat-ing countries to embark in an enterprise which is not universally felt to be for the public advantage. That this disinclination should exist emphasises the amazing limitations which have been put upon cable use by its monopolisation. The average man does not feel that the cable question immediately affects him, even the business man regards it as an incidental factor and not as one which he is deeply concerned in having placed upon a sound and permanent footing. If the Eastern Extension Company had continued its old rates, the Pacific cable could have entered the field with an immediate reduction or 50 per cent, on charges, and thus secured at once | an unimpeachable footing. But when the scheme first showed indications of being brought to maturity, the Eastern Extension Company promptly reduced its rates 50 j per cent, and thus attempted to prevent the partnership from being formed. When the partnership was formed it again offered to reduce its rates on condition that it was allowed to open offices in the Australasian colonies, build connecting land lines, receive and deliver cable messages. The vigorous protestations of Mr. Seddon prevented this being generally agreed to. New South Wales, however, actually went behind the partnership agreement in the Pacific cable compact and is now receiving these reduced cable rates as the price of its most questionable conduct, Now, comes Victoria with its "joint purse" suggestion, claiming dolefully that it is losing £50,000 per annum through not making terms with the Eastern Extension Company, and forgetting that were it not for the still unlaid Pacific cable it would be paying double the present rates, and that when the cable is laid a Shilling Cable is only a question of time. What we would emphasise and make clear to every man, in our own colony, throughout Australasia and throughout' the world, is that a great battle is being fought for cable reform, and that all these concessions' and proposals only have as their purpose the strengthening of the great cable

monopoly and the hindrance of a beneficent and far-reaching movement. This "joint purse V Upon what is it based 1 In whose interest is it designed ? The Pacific Cable Board has not asked for it and has not sug-

gested it. It springs from among Australian officials, who were always lukewarm for a- public cable service and recently eager to give

this private monopoly unprecedented vantage ground for its fight with the publicly-owned and operated line. • The proposal, in Mr. Ward's words, is '"'not only undesirable, but indefensible.' We would go further: the proposal is absurd. It only j shows how penny-wise and pound- j foolish is the view of some of j our Australian neighbours. It shows how impossible is any compromise between a public service and a prohibitive monopoly. Can sider the facts ! The Australian Governments own every inch of the i land-lines of the Continent. They take part in a partnership to lay a public cable under the Pacific, which will be as completely " national'' as the line between Melbourne and Brisbane, between Auck- ! land and Wellington. If we stood upon our unquestionable rights, if we treated this extortionate company in the absolutely businesslike manner in which it has always treated us, from 'the very first day j that the Pacific cable was laid we j should put every word received in our public offices over our own public cable, and put the price paid therefor into our own public pocket. What is there to prevent us '? By j what process of Eastern Extension logic can *uch a simple procedure j be disputed 1 That we do not propose to do this, that we are inclined to be " fair" in the matter, only shows how strongly the feeling of public respect for private interests is rooted in us,'and how even the extortions of the Eastern Extension Company have failed to inspire us with a determination to reduce their : cables to the value of copper wire awkwardly stored. Yet in the face of all this our most strangely-in-fluenced Victorian neighbours actually suggest that the Pacific cable —our own cable—shall take onefourth of our business, and that our old enemy, the Eastern Extension, shall take three-fourths. By this means the growth of the Pacific cable would be petrified—if, indeed, Canada and the Imperial Government did not withdraw in disgust its charges would have to be kept unduly high, not only by mutual agreement, but by the limited busi- | ness it would be allowed to do, and j this private company would be fed, j as of yore, by the ignorance of the i general public and the complaisance of those in authority. Mr. Ward, as a business man, perceives the objections to any such one-sided arrangement being agreed to before the Pa- I cific cable is at work and showing what it can do ; as a public official he is compelled to deal only with that phase of the question which conies under his official notice. But

while we endorse all that he says,

we contend that there is more be-

hind this than appears on the sur-

face. The Eastern Extension Com-

pany has loyal and devoted ser-

vants ; it is a sorrowful thing that

we cannot say the same of every

Australian State