The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-25 00:00:00

CAPE TOWN.

Tho report of the directors states that the line had been
efficiently and safely worked since the opening of the first
section in Feb., 1862. The directors, however, regretted to
state that, though there had been an increase of 11,140 pas-
sengers and 3,756 tons of goods in the half-year ending 30th
June last, and in the gross receipts from £13,855 to £10,783,
yet from the depressed condition of the western province,
and the absence of the Government and Parliament in the
eastern, there had not been that development of their traffic
and consequent increase of revenue they had reason to ex-
pect. From increase of mileage run, and the heavy expenses
incurred in replacing decayed sleepers, the working ex-
penses had increased from £13,2.06 to £18,116, leaving a loss
of £1,700 on working the line. The item of maintenance of
way an i works amounted to £6,500. Of this three-fourths
were solely due to replacing decayed sleepers—a charge
which, under the peculiar circumstances. of the case, the
Board were of opinion should be placed to capital, and in
reference to which they were iu communication with the
local Government. But for those exceptional charges the
line would have been worked to a profit, notwithstanding
the position of the colony. After all payments in the
past hall-y,ar were deducted there was a balance of
£4,418 available for dividend for the three months ending
the 30th of June. It would be proposed, therefore, in ac-
cordance with the resolution of the shareholders at the
meeting of the 15th of April, to declare a dividend of 32 per
cent on the capital stock of the company, payable forthwith,
carrying over a balance of £231 to the next account. From
the traffic returns it appeared that 260,905 passengers and
42,718 tons of goods had been carried over the line from its
opening, in Feb. 1862, to the 30th of Juno, 1864. For the
month of July last the receipts had been £2,077, arising
from the carriage of 5,227 passengers and 1,608 tons of goods.
The negotiations with the Wynberg Railway Company were
broken off-by their Board, who had since obtained an Act
granting them running powers over the line of this com-
pany, from Salt River to Cape Town. Such an Act, the
directors were advised, was a direct breach of the agreement
with the colonial Government, by which " the exclusive
right of having and working a railway on this line was gua-
ranteed to this company." The memorial of the company to
his Excellency Governor Wodehouse, praying him to with-
hold his assent to this measure if passed by the Legislature,
and to remit it home for the consideration of her Majesty's
Government, not having reached him before the local Par-
liament was prorogued and his assent given, the Board had
brought the matter before the Secretary of State for the
Colonies, with the hope of inducing him to advise her
Majesty to allow the act in question, Apart from the in-
jury likely to accrue to this company, and the imminent
danger involved in working the traffic of two independent
companies over one line, in the present temporary and
limited accommodation at the Cape Town station, the direc-
tors felt that this attempt to infringe the Parliamentary
guarantee, on the faith of which the capital of this company
was raised almost entirely in Englund, ought to be most
strenuously resisted.

SOUTH AUSTRIAN AND LOMBARDO VENETIAN
The traffic receipts on the South Austrian line from the
Ist of January to the 13th inst. amounted on 1,082 miles to
£1,616,718, and for the corresponding period last year to
£1,506,777, showing an increase of £49,911. The receipts
on the Lombardo-Venetian line, 274 miles in length,
amounted to £301,318 against £286,277 on 257 miles for the
same period last year, showing an increase of £15,051.

OXFORD AND THAME.
This railway was opened for traffic yesterday. It is a
single line, on the broad gauge, starting from the Great
Western two miles south of Oxford, and having intermediate
stations at Littlemore and Wheatley. It is 15 miles in
length, and affords direct access from Oxford to Wycombe,
Aplesbury, and Maidenhead.

ROYAL MAIL STEAMPACK ET,
The report of the directors states that the reduction in
the amount of subsidy under the company's new mail con-
tracts, which came into operation on the Ist of January
last, would have prepared the shareholders for a decrease
in the aggregate receipts in the working account as com-
pared with that for the corresponding half of the preceding
year, and it would therefore be satisfactory to them to find
that, in consequence of increased receipts from freight and
passage money, the deficiency on the credit side of the
working account was less than might have been ex-
pected. On the other hand, higher rates of freight for
the conveyance of coal to the depots abroad, and the
fact that the supplies of stores, &c,, were restricted when
the old contract was drawing to a close and the decision of
the Government as to a new arrangement with the company
was uncertain, accounted for the outlay under those heads
in the half year ended the 30th June last being larger than
it was for the corresponding six months of last year. The
total disbursements in the working account were £7,398 in
excess of the expenditure for the same period of the year
1863. Owing to the increase on the one side and the de-
crease on the other side of the wet king account, the surplus
fell short of that for the corresponding six months of 1863
by £14,044. After 'debiting the general reserve fund with
the loss of the sale of the Teviot, there remained a balance
in favour of the company of £36,218. The state of the in-
suranco account was very satisfactory, for after charging it
with the bonus declared in April last, the balance at the
credit of the account on the 3Jth June last was £240,181.
It was right, however, to mention that since that date the
directors had paid 16,581 in settlement of the due of the
Spanish vessel Mercedes, run down by the Shannon. The
state of the accounts enabled the directors to recommend
that a dividend of £3 per share out of the ordinary profits,
and a bonus of £2 per share from the insurance fund, be de-
clared, free of income tax, and that warrants for the same
be issued on the 29th inst.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—No great invention entirely overthrow-
hue pre'.existing practice was, we suppose, even in-
troduced without occasioning some countervailing
disturbance and trouble, Possibly a more unmixed
good was never provided for mankind than the in-
vention of the electric telegraph. It has outdone
all that the wildest imagination could conceive of
the wonderful and supernatural, and armed us with
a übiquity of knowledge, the very best gift that the
most sanguine enthusiast would have expected from
the hand of science. It is rapidly creating for us
one of the most useful of all practical branches of
knowledge—the science of meteorology. It is draw-
ing our vast and scattered empire together into one
compact whole, and it is giving to friends or cor-
respondents in remote positions many of the ad-
vantages which result from inhabiting the same
metropolis. Yet even this great and marvellous
agency, the most beneficial as well as the most won-
derful that the world has ever seen, carries with it
some not inconsiderable drawbacks. The fault is
not in the machine itself, but in our experience and
inability to use it properly. It is a truism to say
that in order to Judge properly of any subject
nothing is so valuable as the absence of prejudice—
of the iassumption of arbitrary and preconceived
opinions. It is one of the highest efforts of candour
and fairness to keep the mind unbiassed until a
story has been fairly told out from beginning to
end. The natural tendency of the mind is to con-
vert particulars into generals, or exceptions into
rules, and when it has once done so to enlist all its
obstinacy and all its self-love in the task of upholde
ing a conclusion rashly assumed from imperfect
data. The person who sends a telegraphic mes-
sage founded on long despatches must necessarily
give a mere summary, and because it is a summary
an imperfect appreciation of their contents. A great
part of the public, we apprehend, take their ideas
of remote events almost entirely from these sum-
maries, without giving themselves the trouble to
verify them by subsequent investigations of the
doctrines on :which they are founded. It is thus
that the electric telegraph may, and often does, be.
come the means of promulgating inaccurate infor-
mation. No one is to blame for this, but the pos-
sibility is one against which people ought to be on
their guard. Thus we have recently laboured under
the agreeable mistake that the war in New Zealand
is at an:end, and now awake to the chilling con-
viction that out of the many tribes which have
taken up arms against it is only one section that has
laid down its arms. The Tauranga tribes, which
have just submitted to us, are of all others the most
likely to have taken such a step ; for, although they
have taken up arms against us, they have always
conducted the war in a chivalrous, humane, and even
Christian spirit, which shows that the instruction
we have communicated to them, however imperfect
it may have been, has not been without valuable
fruits in mitigating the horrors of savage warfare,
even if it has not been able to prevent the occurrence
of that warfare altogether. The tribes have been
very mercifully dealt with. They made an absolute
submission, declaring that they placed their persons
and their property entirely at the disposal of the
Governor. In order probably to make the deeper
impression upon them, Sir G. Grey took a night to
consider his decision, and then announced to them
that their submission was accepted; that they were,
so far as their persons were concerned, fully par-
doned; that the prisoners of war of their tribe whom
we had taken should be released ; that all those
who had come in and given up their arms should be
immediately settled on locations on their own lands,
to be as far as practicable chosen by themselves ;
that as they were without food, and had lost every
thing by the war, seed potatoes should be given
them, as well as implements and other things neces-
sary to enable them to.settle on their locations; that
the forfeiture, of their lands should not extend to
more than one-fourth; that the precise quantity
within these limits should be afterwards settled.
The Tauranga tribes expressed themselves most
grateful, as well they might, for the clemency shown
them, for certainly fairer terms were never granted
to a vanquished enemy. It is besides agreeable to
know that these terms were granted to the natives
with the assent and in the presence of two members
of the Parliamentary Government of New Zealand ;
so that there is some reason to hope that a collision
between the Imperial and Colonial authorities,which
at one time seemed imminent, may now be entirely
avoided. This news is excellent, as far as it goes,
but no one can say that it amounts to anything like
the close of the war, or a pacification of the Northern
Island. We must expect in the coming New Zealand
summer, which is now just cemmencing, that mili-
tary operations will be carried on at Taranaki, and
very possibly in other districts. Of the extent and
probable duration of these operations men will judge
according as their temper is sanguine or desponding.
It would be a great mistake of course to regard the
New Zealand tribe as a compact confederacy, ani-
mated by one spirit or actuated by one will. They
may be more aptly compared to those Highland clans
so formidable when they can be gathered together
in a single field with a single purpose, but so liable to
melt away like snow under the influence of jealousies
and motives entirely incomprehensible to a stranger.
But this very disunion and disorganisation, which
has made them less formidable in war, will also re-
tard the conclusion of peace. Still there can be no
doubt that the merciful treatment extended to the
first tribes which have made their submission will
have the very best effect upon native opinion
throughout New Zealand. There is no excuse now
for what may he called the argument of desperation
—for the feeling that all is lost by surrender, and
therefore nothing is endangered by continuing the
war. The best argument is thus taken out of the
mouths of the native agitators. But how speedily
this consideration may work we cannot pretend to
guess. It is only just to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies to observe that this favourable turn in
the affairs of New Zealand is in a great measure to
be attributed to the despatches which were sent
from this country during the spring of the present
year. It is a signal instance of the wisdom—nay,
of the necessity—of interposing the due and para.
mount authority of the Imperial Government iu all
cases where Imperial interests are directly cons
cerned. Under the excuse of self-government the
Australian Colonies claim to exciude from all com-
munication another colony which had fallen under
their displeasure, and there was some reason to ap-
prehend that under a similar claim the Assembly of
New Zealand might employ her Majesty's forces,
supported out of Imperial funds, for the extetmie
nation of her Majesty's subjects, the aboriginal na-
tives of New Zealand. The attitude taken by the
Colonial-office has, we are happy to believe, put an
end to this danger. The New Zealanders will be far
readier to consider the terms of pacification now that
they feel they have to deal, not with the local Mi-
nistry representing an interest directly contrary to
their own, but with the Imperial Parliament, which
can have no other interest than to act impartially
between the two races. They feel they are not
going to be handed over to the mercy of irritated
and victorious enemies, but that they stand before
the tribunal of a Power which can and will do them
justice. We doubt not that we owe to these con-
siderations the pacification of the Tauranga tribes,
and we entertain the strongest hopes that this is
only the commencement of a movement destined
shortly to restore peace to New Zealand. The same
policy has also, we believe, very favourably influ-
enced the deliberations of the responsible Ministry
of New Zealand. The announcement that after the
close of the present year the burden of the war exe
penditure will fall in a great measure on the colony
has, we have reason to believe, operated a most bene-
ficial change, if not in the opinions, at any rate in
the projects of the Colonial Government. They are
disposed to be moderate, because it has been made
quite clear to them that the cost of a violent and
aggressive policy will have to be borne by them-
selves. No amount of confiscated land, the only
property of which it is possible to deprive the na-
tives, would compensate the colonists for a few
months of that expenditure which has hitherto been
borne by the home Government. It is their interest
to conclude the war just as they conceived it to be
before their interest to continue it, and we doubt
not that they will govern themselves accordingly.

POST.—The announcement that a motion for the
annexation of Lauenburg to Prussia has been agreed
to by the Landtag of that Duchy will probably snr,
prise those who have not forgotten that at the com-
mencement of the late war, when Schleswigers and
Holsteiners were rejoicing in the prospect of a speedy
severance from Denmark, the population of Lauen-
burg declared their willingness to link their fate
with that of the Scandinavian monarchy. But in
the present instance it would scarcely be fair to
ascribe the change in the popular sentiment to mere
fickleness. If Lauenburg does in truth desire to be
annexed to Prussia, the idea did not in all probe■
bility originate with herself. Straws indicate the
current of the wind, and the motion to which the
Upper Chamber of the little Lauenburg Parliament
has given its assent may possibly denote the policy
which, if it be possible, Prussia intends to pursue,
not only in that Duchy but in those of Schleswig
and Holstein. Lauenburg always stood on a dif•
ferent footing in its relations with Denmark to either
of the other Duchies—for, although, like Holstein,
forming a portion of the Germanic Confederation,
it was not like it interested, in that much vexed
question whose solution was finally to be effected
by the dismemberment of Denmark. The loyalty
evinced by Lauenburg to the Crown to which she
has been so long attached furnishes, perhaps, the
most conclusive answer to the charge so frequently
advanced against the Danish Government of having
drawn a distinction between German and Danish
subjects to the prejudice of the former. The
population of Lauen burg is almost exclusively
German, and the attachment they have evinced to

Denmark may therefore be regarded as evi4
deuce of the Danish rule not being so in-
tolerable as it was represented to be in
Schleswig and Holstein. Now, however, that the
connection between Lauenburg and Denmark has
been to all appearances finally secured, and as the
claimants to the other Duchies do not pretend to
any title to it, the question of its disposal necessarily
presents itself for consideration. However desirous
of remaining united with Denmark the Lluend
burgers might be, the complete isolation of the
Duchy would render such a union geographically
impossible and politically useless. Two other solo"
Lions alone remain, namely—the preservation of a
separate and independent position, or annexation
to another State. Between these two the Lauen-
burgers have now been called upon to decide, in
conformity with the modern usage which, in ap-
pearance at least, gives to a people ,the right of
determining its future lot ; and if the declared
opinion of the Landtag is to be received as exs
pressive of the national will, the decision will
be pronounced in favour of annexation to
Prussia. If the inhabitants of a territory of three
Hundred square miles are indifferent, as they
may well be, to the possession of that quasi inde-
pendence which the several potty German States
eoj ,y, they could not do better, perhaps, than con-
sent to absorption into the most powerful kingdom
in the Confederation. The annexation ofLauenburg
to Prussia could, however, scarcely fail to awaken
the jealousy of those minor States which have
watched with alarm the aggressive and aggrandise
ing policy which that Power has of late so steadily
and apparently so successfully pursued. Not that
the addition of a Duchy about as large as Hertford'
shire, and not a quarter so populous, to the Pruse
sian monarchy would make the latter more terrible,
but simply because it is not easy to say where a
system of annexation may stop. The Duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein are, as we have said,
in a position dissimilar from that of Lauenburg,
but if the Legislature in the latter declare in
favour of being annexed to Prussia, it is neither
impossible nor improbable that the assemblies of
the former might by Prussian influence be brought
to express the same wish, It is true that the Duke
of Augustenburg, the Duke of Oldenburg, and one
of the Princes of Hesse lay claim to the throne of
the United Duchies, and it is equally true that the
Diet at Frankfort alone possesses jurisdiction to
adjudicate upon their different claims, but it must
not be forgotten that a Prussian army occupies
the Duchies and that the administration is in the
hands of the Prussian Government. Every one
knows with what extreme facility under such cir'
cumstances numerously signed addresses might be
prepared and forwarded to Berlin, expressing just
whatever the Prussian Government was desirous of
having expressed, and the equal ease with which
the army of occupation would take care that the
alleged wishes of the people were carried into effect.
We are far from saying that this policy will be
pursued, but the circumstance of one of the three
Duchies taken from Denmark gravitating to Prus-
sia might reasonably excite the alarm of those who
would unwillingly see the other two share the same
fate. Whilst the war was still in progress we
hazarded the conjecture that at its termination the
aggressors would experience some little difficulty
in disposing of the spoil. That conjecture has since
been amply confirmed, and there is reason to bee
lieve that Prussia has met with several unexpected
obstacles to the realisation of her original scheme.
Notwithstanding her might, she cannot yet afford
to bid defiance to the lesser States of the Confede-
ration. The Diet is desirous of handing over the
Duchies to one of the pretenders; and, however
averse from such an arrangement, Prussia would
not, at least by an exhibition of violence,
attempt to prevent its being carried into effect.
The embarrassed state of the finances in
both Duchies coupled with the fact that Pro*
sia is a creditor in possession, will, however,
afford to that State a means, of which she will not
Hesitate to avail herself, of postponing fill:lend
nitely that settlement to which the minor Powers
look forward with so much anxiety. If Prussia
makes the evacuation' of Schleswig and Holstein
conditional, on being indemnified for the expene
diture entailed by the war, she will retain posses-
sion long enough to leave the populatioc no alter-
native but to perpetuate a rule of which it would be
impossible for them to rid themselves. Count Von
Bismarck, no doubt, thinks that it is a mere quese
tion of time when Schleswig and Holstein will be'
come nominally as well as virtually a portion of the
kingdom of Prussia. We understand that his royal
master has conferred on him the rank of Chancel-
lor of State, in consideration of the skill with which
he has conducted his foreign policy. If success be
a test of merit, it will be impossible to deny that
the reward was well bestowed.