THE POLYNESIAN TRADE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4175, 7 August 1874, Page 3

THE POLYNESIAN TRADE.

(From the Otago Daily Times.) The South Sea Scheme is gradually unfolding itself in all its lovely proportions ; and the more we hear of it, the more we like it. As often happens, we think the Premier’s practice is far better than his creed. If his proposition was to create a South Sea department of the public service—to engage an army of clerks, inspectors, managers, &c., &c.—we should be the first to raise the hue and cry, and should do so on the express ground that here was an interference -with private enterprise ;,a new instance of officialism in New Zealand. We could conceive nothing more eminently disastrous than such a scheme, and every free trader in the Colony would necessarily object stoutly. None of the same objections seem to us to hold good as against the very modest proposal made by Mr. Vogel, of giving a Colonial guarantee to a company of 5 per cent.; on the contrary, such a method of assistance has always seemed to us to combine all the advantages of free trade with the one or two plain gains of protection. It gives just that element of certainty to a new scheme the want of which in a young Colony so often strangles a new project. Without pledging the State to that nagging interference, that iron uniformity, that routine control which is the almost inevitable concomitant of State management, it leaves the whole direct work to private people, permits to the detail a plasticity which is to such a matter the very breath of its life, while it presents it as a sound and manageable matter to the doubting capitalist. Two faults, indeed, we find with the detail of the proposal—they are faults easily corrected, indeed, and are amongst those things upon which . advice and opinions are usually most eagerly welcomed. Mr. Vogel suggests that the New Zealand Government should guarantee five per cent, for fifty years upon the South Sea Company's capital. The percentage is surely too low, and the time during which it is to run too long. Increase the minimum dividend to 7 per cent., while alloting it for twenty-five or thirty years. Or still better, have a sliding-scale, as is for the most part the case with the guarantees given by the Government of India to railway companies. Let the amount proffered be 7 per cent, for ten or fifteen years, with a reduction afterwards. We do not think that the knowledge of a 5 per cent, guarantee will suffice to float an undertaking which must necessarily require a very considerable time before it can return any large profit. We have great faith that if the proposed company were taken in hand by men well , versed in such matters, the Government would not require to put its hand in its pocket for a farthing. Just for that reason,

that we have great faith in the ultimate success of the scheme, we think it a great pity to run any risk, by a penurious offer, of hindering its being prosperously launched.