NEW MAIL ROUTE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 865, 11 July 1910, Page 8

NEW MAIL ROUTE.

VIA THE TBANSANDINE BAILWAS. A LETTER -FROM VALPABAISO. The Kev. S. J. Serpell, of the TaranaM Street Jletbodist Church, has received a letter from a friend in Valparaiso, who has great hopes that New Zealand will make use of the Transandine route for a mail service. In the course of the letter the writer states: "I have heard that New Zealand is proposing a 27 d'jys' service with England via Valparaiso au,d Buenos Ayrps. I boliove that the l'aciiic Steam Navigation Company, with headqnarters nt Liverpool, could do better. They are under contract to carry the royal mails to every republic in South America, with the exception of Vpnezaclii, and . are at present building four mammoth steamers to trade between England and Buenos Ayres, doing the trip in twelve days. Tho mails (from England to Valparaiso) take 19 days at present. By train from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso (now in full working order), via the Andes tunnel, takes Sβ hours, and I believe that the_.Union Company propose a service from and to Valparaiso in ten days, making the journey from New Zealand to Kngland in 21 days—three days shorter tlmn it could be done at present. This should also make u big difference to Sydney, as mails should be got to that po'ii in 28 days—from three to eight days sooner than at present. Then Valparaiso wonlcl be a market for your butter, cheese, bacon, and inulton. At present butter is 2s. Gd. per lb., cheese 2s. Cd. per lb., bacon Is. Gd. per lb., mutton 'Ml. per lb., whilst from (id. to M. per lb. is paid for beef. These prices are uniform throughout the year, except that butter drops to Is. Sii. per lb. tor a month or two only."

Unfortunately the dream of a 24 days' service between New Zealand and England is still n lons' v:a> ol'f realisation, and the references to the time in which, the writer imagines the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans can be crossed an. l ' very wiili; of the murk. The distance between Wellington and Valparaiso is 5080 knots (according to the Admiralty Chart), and a vessel steaming at an average speed of It knots per hour would take 13 cloys 3 hours to eovei Ihb ilisinnru, lUt railway journey would occupy 35 hours (which, with an allowance of 15 hours at each end for transhipment, would occupy atsci: three days), whilst the journey from Monte Video to England would take 1!) or 20 days (the Corintnic is tine-tabled to cover the distance between Monte Video and London In 21 days). So thai taking a liberal vitw of the class of service which might be maintained, the passage of mails via tho Andes to London would be 3" cr ."8 days. This proves the figures uf (he writer of the above-quoted letter to be erroneous.