The Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1877

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 375, 6 July 1877, Page 2

The Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1877

"A mountain lias been in labour ml brought forth a mouse ;" and a very diminutive mouse, too. The mountain in question is our ponderous contemporary.. the Otugo Daily Time.--, and the mouse the very absurd leader which yestei day's Times contained -with reference to the meeting held at Dunedin on Tuesday „ evening, with regard to railway extension, moce_especiaily to the Interior of the Provincial District of Otago. That meeting, as we have before said, was a failure, both as regards the attendance and ability of the speakers. But our contemporary, with time supreme disregard for truth and ciiiuioii decency which has made its name a by-word'of scorn and ontempt, attempts t<> transform that failure into an umpialiii ju success. We blame not our contemporary for endeavouring to make things appear better than '

they really are ; but we do most emphati cally protest against the manner in whic; our contemporary lias set to work. W liave long since abandoned the idea o meeting with aiwthing approaching eithe truth or honesty in the columns of th Daily Times, but we did hope that it wa not yet entirely dead to all of de cency. That hope appears to have beei vain ; the Times has nut even the one re deeming feature of respectability left ii it, but Las sunk into the lowest depths o journalistic prostitution and degradation A few years since our contemporary wai an ultra-respectable journal, having opin ions of its own and pursuing a distin'c and well-defined course. At that lime however, it possessed an editor, and In was capable of wielding a powerful pen Since then things have greatly changed and our contemporary depends upon i number of hired scribblers for its opinions. The •'• lanes and by-ways " are resorted to, and all and sundry are alio wee a ] lace fur their vaporings in the leading columns of the once boasted leading journal of the Colony. Any man capable of stringing together half a dozen sentences of very poor English can get his writings inserted into the Dully Timet with all the dignity of a leading article attached thereto. The Rev. Mr. S., oi the Episcopalian Church, rubs shoulders in the Editorial columns of the Timej. with the leaders of the free-thinking horde of Dunedin, while the head of the Spiritualistic mob hob-nobs through the same channel with the plain, practical man of the world. In the Editorial columns of the Times saint and sinnei alike have a place. Thus is our contemporary conducted, and thus it is that the Daily Times has no well-defined opinion of its own ; and thus, too, it is that, instead of finding in it honest, straight-for-ward anel out-spoken opinions such as a respectable journal should give utterance to, we meet witli nothing but sly, covert, lying, and underhand utterances. For these reasons we are not astonished at the manner in which the Times speaks of the miserable aii'air elesignateel by courtesy a public meeting which took place in Dunedin on Tuesday evening last, and which, according to the lights of the metropoLs, was to show that Dunedin was everything and her residents everybody, and Oamaru nothing and lilt residents nobodys. so far as the railway to the Interior is concerned. Our contemporary has long ere this obtained a notoriety foi the manner in which it closes its eyes te the v,ni amiable truth, as well as for the easy if not graceful style in which it gives utterance to false-hoods when the truth does not suit its purpe>s;.', as it wry seldom eloes. It is not, therefore, surprising t. had the Daily Time; once more drawing tip-on its inexhaustible store of {lotion when writing upon the Interior llailway question. Only the other day we felt 2alleel upon to point out the utter untruthfulness of some of its utterances upon the subject ; but it has not had the lecency to acknowledge its fault. Again .t lias drawn upon its imagination, and ittenipts by falsehood and misrepresentation to damage the cause of the people of Damaru, who very reasonably wish to jstablish railway communication between ;his port and the Interior of Otago. Not me word eloes it utter in favour of the pet Dunedin line vitt Strath-Taieri to Naseby. ["his fact, in itself, is sullicieiit to convince is that very little indeed can be said in its avour ; anel we are forcibly reminded of he advice given b}' an unserupulou g awyer—' ; No defence : abuse the other ide." This is precisely t'ae principle ipon which the Times has actetl. Ii annot hnel a solitary ground upon whic! 0 defend the Strath-Taieri premosaJ, ane ; consequently devotes its energies towards damaging as far as it can a scheme which has everything to recommend it. Anel in what manner eloes it elo so ; Simply by resorting to the use of lying anel iiiisrepreseiitatie;n—weapons Ii: ;he use of which our contemporary has, from long and persistent practice, become proficient. To abuse we have little objection, for indulgence therein, anel a total Ijabsence of any attempt at argument, eloes nothing beyoiul displaying the weakness of a cause which necessitates recourse to such tactics. But when to that abuse is aeleleel wilful anel deliberate falsehood, we must certainly protest against the pursuance of such a course. What, we would ask, cotilel be more false, more malicious, or more calculated to damage

Oamarii than the following sentences, which were given utterance to by Mr. Leary, and openly concurred in by the Timet: —"lt occurs to me that it is to the interest of the people in the Interior to have communication direct with the principal city in the country, so that their grain, if they export it —as they are sure t;> do —may be sent down to the principal i

■ port of export. If the produce they have grown has to go down to Oamaru. what ! difficulties may have to be met with r there? A heavy northerly or southerly ' wind springs up, and the signal is hoisted, ' Out to sea, everybody.' And then you will find the Oamaru people saying to the Government, ' You have allowed this railway to be made and expended such a large sum of money upon it, you must now make our port a safe port, otherwise your expenditure will be unproductive because people will not ship there.' That seems to me conclusive in favour of the line I am proposing." That may be the biassed opinion of Mr. Leahy and the Daily Times, butj we unhesitatingly assert that it is a gross libel upon the port of Oamaru. There is no safer port in the Culonythan that possessed by Oamaru, and in proof of the truth of our statement we can refer with pleasure to the opinions of the various masters of vessels trading to this port. Happily, the clays for vessels being compelled to put to sea have passed by, so far as Oamaru is concerned. Thanks to the indomitable pluck and energy of the people of Oamaru, we are now able to offer to vessels a haven of safety, and that without any assistance from the generous, open-hearted denizens of the metropolis. Blow the winds as they may—from north or south, east or west—vessels can now with perfect safety find shelter behind the substantial breakwater which the people of this town and. district have erected, and of which those of the parent city have done nothing but speak in terms of derision. All this lias already been achieved, and much more is being done. It is unjust, therefore, even to insinuate that the port, of Oamaru is the reverse of safe for shipping. Were we inclined to adopt the same line of action, what might we not say with regard to the Dunedin harbour, or even to Port Chalmers '? Might we not refer to the great loss which was inflicted upon the commercial communities of the whole of the Colony only a few short months ago through a mail stvamer being unable to get out of Port Chalmers for some daj's owing to the wretched state of the bar \ Might we not allude to the fact of another steamer having struck on the bar at Port Chalmers while having the mails on board 'I Might we not also refer to the fact of the owners of the mail steamers positively refusing to run the risk of iosing their vessels by sending them to Port Chalmers owing to the dangers of the bar and harbour .' All these undeniable facts, and a thousand others equally damaging, we might allude to did we doL-m such a line of action necessary. Hitherto we have attempted to uphold the superiority of the line to the Interior from Oamaru by incontrovertible arguments, and not by uncalled-for abuse, foul lying, and unprincipled action that would stamp a man a " black-leg. : ' We trust that our contemporary, if it has ' one spark of honesty and love of fair play left in it, will adopt a similar line of action. It is a bigger brother, and as such

it ill becomes it to adopt tli3 role of a bully. We can easily imagine that the Times and Dunedin feel keenly the fact that the metropolis is fast losing its position as the commercial centre of !New Zealand. It must, indeed, be galling to them to find that both Wellington and Christcimrch are fast gaining upon them, and that bit by bit, and with unerring steps, they are gradually depriving Dunedin of the commercial supremacy which she once possessad. One of the chief causes of this unquestionably is that both Wellington and Lyttelton are secure harbours, and possess the best facilities for the transaction of shipping business—benefits which Dunedin .can never enjoy to a similar extent. ISTot a little, too, of the gradual reversing of positions of importance which is going on is due to the I selfishness and supreme contempt for their neighbours so lavishly indulged in by the _. •-: -.ccVnites. Under all the circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the fact of Oamaru—a town at one time dependent upon Dunedin, but now happily independent—daring to enter into competition with Dunedin for the trade of the interior should have entirely set the Dunedinites by the ears, and driven them to ail manner of cunning and crafty shifts to prevent our progress. We have not the slightest objection to the newspapers and residents of Dunedin doing all in their power to forward their own interests, but let them not do so by lying and cheating, such as that of the Daily Times.