PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TTTTC.O.882
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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66. But if it be true. as I venture to think, that it is an improper system of working that the main cause of past failure rests, so it is, without doubt, only by the adoption and prosecution of a sound system that success can be obtained in the future. This will apply equally to a Government or to a company, and to neither will it be possible to attempt to work out a sound system without capital.
67. Granted the necessary capital, I believe the Government would work out the undertaking to a successful issue. It certainly does not possess the capital, and even should it be able to procure it, there would still, I think, be many reasons in favour of the undertaking being conceded to a company, if one could be found to accept it.
If a company fails it may be replaced; but the failure of the Government would probably involve that of the whole settlement.
68. For the present Company to abandon the enterprise at this moment would be an admission of failure, and would undoubtedly depreciate the marketable value of the mines. But where would the blame of failure rest? Would it not be absolutely and entirely with the Company? They would fail because, they had neglected to turn to proper account the position-by no means an unfavourable one-which they acquired in 1868; because, instead of applying their energies and resources to works capable of producing solid and permanent results, they had misdirected them to works yielding a temporary return. They would fail, in short, because they had done nothing to deserve
success.
69. In such a contingency I cannot help thinking that were all the circumstances of their failure, and those of former failures, only known to the commercial public, Her Majesty's Government would experience little difficulty in securing the enterprise of another company for these neglected mines.
70. But I can scarcely conceive it possible that the Company should take at this moment a step so adverse to their own interests.
Having now fairly applied themselves to a renewal of the valuable work designed and commenced by Mr. Sinclair in 1866, they have a position which, as I have attempted to show, only requires a certain time and a steady prosecution of the work to arrive at its successful accomplishment.
They have the means, it is only necessary that they should have the resolution.
71. I do not know what influence the intelligence of the present obstacle, easily surmounted as it will be by the application of adequate means, may have upon their intentions. But let it be observed that it is the first natural obstacle they have encountered, and if they give way to it they will show a strange misconception of their position because they will be abandoning the chances of success at the very moment when, having given a right direction to their enterprise, it only needs perseverance to place success, if ever it is to be attained, within their reach.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
No. 33.
HENRY BULWER.
Governor Pope Hennessy to the Earl of Kimberley.—(Received October 30.)
(No. 123.) My Lord,
Government House, Sierra Leone, October 5, 1872.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's despatch No. 326 of the 31st of August, transmitting to me, for any observations I may wish to make upon them, a copy of a letter from the Oriental Coal Company, dated 27th July, 1872, complaining of certain transactions which they allege injured the Company during my administration of Labuan, and a copy of a letter from the Company, dated 3rd of August, 1872,‡ correcting a mistake in their first letter.
2. The Company obtained possession of the Labuan coal mines in May 1868 for a sump of 7,8001. They now complain that their whole available capital, upwards of 40,000%., is lost, and that they have very lately been obliged to issue preferential stock to bear interest at 25 per cent. per annum. Of this stock they say that only a sum of 9,000/. remains; and, even against this, charges are already due, exclusive of the Crown's rent, unpaid for two years, which alone amounts to 2,0001.
3. The Directors appear to attribute this loss of capital to certain charges or "exactions" I made upon them. The improper charges, of which they complain, are as follows:
1st. That they were compelled to keep lighters for conveying coal to Her Majesty's
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No. 15.
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ships, but that a certain stipulated allowance was not paid to them by the Government for keeping such lighters.
2nd. That I exacted 1001. rent for a single jetty, and made them pay it in advance. 3rd. That I made them pay 7851., "for the first time in the history of the Colony," for Police.
4th. That they were charged extravagantly for hospital services.
5th. That the late manager made a road to the Governor's house at a cost of 4411. 168. 2d.
In addition to these five items they ask for an explanation of the rates charged for convict labour.
4. Mr. William Lindsay, repeating to your Lordship what a deputation had already said, writes on the first point as follows:--
"The Directors of the Company have also to state that they believe nothing has hitherto been fixed by the Crown for the use of the Company's lighters in loading the above quantity of 4,712 tons of coal put on board Her Majesty's ships. The Directors, therefore, beg that this matter may be inquired into by the Colonial Office, and that whatever is due to the Company in respect to it be fixed by the Governor and credited to the Company in stating the claim for rent."
5. I need say nothing, however, on this point; for, in a week after the Directors made their statement, the Secretary of the Company informs your Lordship that "Mr. Lindsay, in the absence of the Company's books, has made a mistake in stating that no money has been paid by the Government for the use of lighters in carrying off coals to Her Majesty's ships; and 1 have been directed to inform your Lordship that the stipulated allowance has been duly paid,"
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6. On the second point the Directors say "Now the late Governor, Pope Hennessy, exacted as rent for a single jetty the sum of 1001., and this rent he made payable in advance.
The Company's late manager (Mr.Alexander Lumsden) was not attentive to the Company's interests in regard to these extra matters.
The Directors of the Company submit that the rent of the single jetty should not exceed a nominal sum of 1s. yearly."
The
7. On this second point, the Directors are also mistaken. In 1869 Lord Granville directed me to report on an application made to him by the Company for a water frontage at Victoria Harbour, where they proposed to make a coaling wharf for steamers. Company also wanted land for building coal sheds close to the wharf; and land for a rail. way terminus, including space for sidings, workshops, &c. The Senior Naval Officer then in the harbour, and the Company's manager, selected the best site that could be chosen, and I duly reported the fact to Lord Granville. In my report I suggested that the Com- pany should get altogether 40 acres of Crown land at the Victoria Harbour end of their proposed railway. So far from Mr. Lumsden not being attentive to their interests in this matter, he earnestly begged me to grant all this to the Company rent free. Though the site in question was at the most valuable part of the harbour frontage for commercial purpose, I yielded to his entreaty, and recommended Her Majesty's Government to charge the Company no rent whatever for it, so as to encourage the making of the railway, without which the Coal Company cannot succeed.
8. Her Majesty's Government, however, took a different view of the case, and directed me to charge the Company for the water frontage, together with ten acres of land at the back, a rent of 1001. a year on a twenty-one years' lease. Looking to the value of the property, I believe this rent to be very moderate. One of the Chineso merchants told me he would willingly pay a far larger rent for it; and, if your Lordship will refer to one of my despatches in 1869, reporting the sale of some Crown lands in that immediate neighbourhood, it will be seen that the local traders pay far higher prices than this for the sites of business premises.
9. Nor is it correct to say that I exacted this rent in advance. Though the Company took possession at once, and began to erect engine and coal sheds in April or May, the rent was not applied for until towards the end of the year. Even then, at Mr. Lumsden's solicitation, I told Mr. Howard, the Surveyor-General, not to charge the Company from the time when they marked out the site, but from the time they put up sheds and entered on a beneficial occupation. The Chinese merchants, who occupy premises at either side of the site in question, had paid the same year's rent long before the Coal Company had been asked for it.
10. On this point it is worth observing that what the Directors call a single jetty," for which they desire to pay only Is. a year, is, in fact, an extensive site in the most valuable part of Labuan. Before I left the Colony, the wharf was so far advanced that I saw the Manilla mail-steamer, on more than one occasion, run alongsido
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