POSTAL COMMUNICATION TO THE NORTH.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVI, Issue 1207, 21 January 1859, Page 3

POSTAL COMMUNICATION TO THE NORTH.

To the Editor of the Southern Cross. Sir, —Knowing your columns are open for the expression of any opinian tending to the good of this colony and society generally, 1 beg to draw your attention and solicit your advice on the above important subject. There is at present an Overland mail going weekly to Matakana ; and there is also a branch Post and runner from the Waipu to Wangarei ; leaving about 30 to 3d miles of coast without any office, or means of posting letters, &c. With a small additional expence, say £2 10s. to £3 per week, these two posts could be joined — making a direct communication to Wangarei ; and as the mail leaves Auckland early in the week, it would arrive in Wangarei by Friday or Satuday. But the chief good arising from this •would be to the settlers at the Wnngateau, Oma, Pakiri, and Mangawhai : as it is now, it is very inconvenient, and vain hoping to get letters from friends, papers from town, or transacting any business by letter, except arrangements are made to have' them sent to Matakana, which is at least 25 miles from Mangawhai ; and it must indeed be a very important letter that a poor 6ettler will go 50 miles for; — to the Waipu, going and returning, say 30 miles ; but then it would be the merest shadow of a chance of it ever getting there, because the craft that brings it to Wangarei might just as well take it up the river ; they might send it back to town ; and those very clear-sighted people might send it back again, or perhaps put it on the shelf, as they thought best ; and if it should get to the Waipu, and the party whom it was for get the happy news, and go there, it is fifty to one but the postmaster would be off on a pilgrimage, or some such pious duty. It is, in fact, a great hindrance to the settlement of this district— no regular communication. They •ay,— 11 Oh ! who would live there ? why one might be dead a month before friends would hear of it in town ; or starve, before we could get a supply of provisions ; and as to getting away, it is impossible, except you up stick and tramp it." Though country settlers may not be great correspondents, yet they have all some friends, or some occasional business to transact, for which they re* quire facility of post ; indeed, the country can hardly be said to be settled so long as there is no established means of communicating with the capital, as well as the different settlements with one another. Still more so when there is no difficulty in the route, as a person can easily ride or walk from Matakana to Wangarei in two of our shortest days, the road being a good bridle track, over the Rodney ranges ; this is not the famed North Koad, but one along the beach partly cut by Mr.Dyer, to drive his bullocks on from Wangatau to Fakiri thence along the sandy beach to Mangawhai, which, after crossing, there is an excellent road to Waipu, cut by Mr. Eaffe, surveyor ; thence to Wangarei along the beach. There would be a ferry required at Banks', at the Wang«teau, and a very small bridge over a stream half way to Pakiri. I think the Provincial authorities should be alive to the advantages arising from this arrangement to the different settlements ; to Pakiri, where there is a surveyor employed in dividing farms ; to the Oma, where a township has been lately laid out ; to Mangawhai, and the country immediately behind, where there is a large quanty of land being brought into the market, as well as many new settlers going there of late. And though this road is not the Great North Road, yet if a small sum was laid out on way-posts, paint* ed white, at the crossing- places of rivers, and occasionally along the track, where parties were likely to go astray, a rough bridge or two laid over small streams, and a sum allowed for ferry boats, it would be highly beneficial to the country ; for if nothing is done till the Great North Road comes into use, we shall never have an opportunity of seeing anything effected ; i.e., if they continue to move on the same ratio as from the last exploration. Indeed this trade, that I would wish to see Improved, will still

pontiff tie useful wheh any rovprnnVent wishes to explore that celebrated road —for electioneering, or other purposes. However this may be, I hope it will appear plain to all that there is a necessity for a connecting link between the above settlements : the cost will be a mere nothing, when wp tnke into view the vast sums expended in subsidizing ateamvessels. public works, &c., &c, &c. ; and the benefits arising, of vital importance to the above-named places. And now, Mr. Editor, if you will be sp good as to inform me what is the proper method to obtain this desirable boon, you will oblige 1 Your most obedient servant, A Sbttiib. January 15th, 1859.

To the Editor if the Southern Crott Sir,— My object being to expose the Editor of the ' New-Zealander'i ' system of puffing the Land Regulations, and to keep poor settlers out of the land trap, I submit to answer a letter published in that paper on Saturday last, signed "B.," written, I have no doubt, by one of the editors, because he is em- • ployed to do the dirty work of the Superintendont'a newspaper, in misleading the public. Three separate grants of 2560 acres of land were given^o the late Mr. Kermode, of Mon* Vale, between the years 1820 and 1840 ; and so liberal were the Government of Van Diemen's Land at that time that inferior land of little value was thrown in. He showed me a reclaimed swamp of 500 acres that had been given in with one of the grants, the whole of which was in 1841 under English grasses, divided into eighty-one paddocks, and could be irrigated at pleasure. These facts I had from Mr. Kermode himself. Mr. B. having admitted the fact that land, even to the extent of 2560 acres, was given to settlers, is sufficient to convict either him or his c >lleague of mis-representation, for he cannot deny my statement that land to the extent of 2560 at least was granted to capitalists, in proportion to the means they had of making it useful, thereby holding out every encouragement for the introduction of money into the Colony,— a system in direct opposition to the one pursued here, which gives land to those who have not the means to use it to advantage, and locks up seven-eigVths of the country from those who could made it available. This nonsense about land-shark, ing has been so often exposed that I feel it unnecessary to go into that matter again ; I am quite willing to admit that where there are a sufficient number of capitalists located to employ labourers, giving them small allotments of land may be beneficial to both classes, but to settle a large number of poor people on the average quality of land in this Province, at a distance from those who can employ their labours, is ruination to them. I cannot understand by what rule Mr. B. comes to the conclusion that I advocate convict labour from my having stated the fact, that settlers in Van Dieman's Land were supplied with it. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, W. F. Poetbr. January 19, 1859. P.S.—I beg to remind Mr, B. that abuse is not argument. W. F. P.