MAIL SERVICE.

Press, Volume XLIII, Issue 6492, 14 July 1886, Page 6

MAIL SERVICE.

WELLINGTON, July 5,

Negotiations for placing the through service on a permanent basis, at an additional coet of £7000 a year, have just been concluded, this oolony to pay two-thirds and New South Wales one-third ef the extra subsidy. The payments in respect of the service, as amended, will new be—New Zealand, £24,667, and New South Wales £12,333 per annum; but deducting the proportion of the United Stated contribution, the net annual payments are reduced to £23,334 by New Zealand and £11,000 by New South Wales. In ie-arranging the servioe for collecting and distributing the San Franoiflcomail coastwise, asavinginthecoet has been effected. Thejsubsidies are now £5000 for the first year, with a reduction of £500 per annum fcr the remaining term of two years. The following remarks in the Poet Office report on the various mail services between England and New Zealand will be read with interest:—"The direct

contract service' has been performed with a regularity so much within the contract time as to completely upset the most liberal calculations as to the capability of the line. The shortest time within which mails have been delivered in London has been 38 days, and in the colony 42 days. Some exceptionally fast steaming has been accomplished:—B7 days 9 hours from Wellington to Plymouth, and 99 days 13 hours from Plymouth to Port Chalmers, including atoppsges, have been the beet performances. The contractors have now fixed Port Chalmers as the first port; of arrival in the colony for the delivery of mails. Tbie, in the Company's interests, may have its advantages, hut the colony as a whole does not benefit by the arrangement, while the drawbacks and risks attending the transhipment of mails and passengers in an open roadstead when the steamers are bound for another port are by '■' no' means insignificant. This has already been manifested, as one of the steamers, after a delay of several hours at Port Chalmers Heads, had to pass on without being able to land mails or passengera in consequence of rough weather; and in another case while the mails were transhipped it was impossible to transfer the passengers, who had to be brought on to another port. Tee net cost of the Service for the year was £655318 a 9d."

Since the establishing of the direct service correspondence forwarded by the Brindisi route has been rapidly diminishing. Last year there were only 4034 letters sent from the colony by both the ?. and O. and Orient services, and the net 'cost for both services was £1050 lOs 2s. The Ket cost in 1884 was £8040 10a, and in 1888 je4B7Sl2e3d. The San Francisco service ie in the unosual position of having a credit balance on the year's operations. After settling the receipts against the expenditure, there is a balance of £432 12e4d on the credit aide, compared with a debit of J87736 10a 74 the previous year; This result is due to exceptional causes; mainly from the fact that the colony retained the whole of the oontritutione from non-contracting colonies in the place of sharing them with Syaney, as in former years, and, in addition, received a private payment for the carriage of the* New South Wales mails. These items now show a considerable falling off, as not only is there no payment from New South Wales, but tbe non-contracting colonies'contributions are again divided with Sydney under the new contract, but, on the other hand, there is a substantial redaction in the eubeidy, viz, from £31,250 to £23,844. and the loss for tbe current year, if any, should be merely a nominal one. -