THE PANAMA MAIL SEEVICE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3355, 17 April 1868, Page 3

THE PANAMA MAIL SEEVICE.

IN the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, on the 2nd instant, Mr. Ltjcas moved, on the order being read for going into Committee of Supply, " 1. That the sum of £65,000 per annum, required to meet the expenses of steam communication viil Panama, is greatly in excess o£ any advantages which the people of this colony derive therefrom. 2. That therefore any contract which has been entered into by the Government of this colony with the Government of New Zealand for the aforesaid purpose should be terminated with as little delay as possible consistent with the public faith. 3. That the foregoing resolutions be embodied in an address to his Excellency the Governor." He said he did not bring forward this motion in any party spirit, or for the purpose of obstructing the passing of the estimates. Some time ago he moved for returns connected with this service, and intimated that before the session closed he would take steps to »Bcertain the opinion o£ the Houbb whether it should be continued or not. The information he then asked for haH since been laid on the 1 table. He tboughtthemotion was a proper one to move on such an occasion, inasmuch as it involved » sum of £55,000 a-year, and the House vr»9 usually counted out on private days. It w»i necessary to give twenty-four months' notice to the New Zealand Government if this agreement was to terminate early in 1871. He could not say exactly when it terminated, inasmuch as he had been unable to find two letters dated 10th March, 1865, and 22nd April, 1865, on which the agreement was based. (Mr. Pabkbs said these letters were laid on the table, and the hon. Colonial Secretary shortly afterwards found them in the record* and handed them to the hon, member.) Hon. members might say there would be plenty of time next year to test this question, but the House might meet only for a few days, and then a dissolution might take place, and it would be too late to give this notice to terminate the agreement early in

1871. Thus he thought it was absolutely necessary that the feeling of the House should be taken on this subject before the termination of the present session. If the agreement were continued over 1871 it would spread ( orer seventeen months. As this involved an expenditure of £55,000 a-year, if the debate should occupy a few hours this evening he did not think the time would be thrown away. Our present seryices by Paaama and by the P. and O. Company cost us j. 75,400, and the revenue amoutted to about £9,000, so that in reality we sustained a loss on those two services of something like £66,000. We could not get a fortnightly service by those two services, simply because one of them occupied 13 or 14 days longer than the other in the passage. We had frequently seen the two mail boats going out in one day. It was always known by the authorities that these services would be of little use to the country. He found, in the evidence given before the House by the acting secretary to the Sydney Post-office, the following observations; — "It will be seen that, according to this table, the homeward mail from Sydney, via Panama, would be of little uae to New South Wales and England, as, although leaving seven days before, it would arrive in Loudon only on the same day as the mail via Suez and Marseilles. Moreover, the outward mail from London would, as a means of reply to the iuward one, be useless, as the latter, arriving on the 14th, would be replied to by the buea route, the mails by which leave on the 20th and 26th. At Sydney, the interval for replies would, I think (with a bi-monthly mail), be inconveniently long (fifteen days). It will further be observed that, so long as the time now proposed is occupied on the voyages via Panama, it will not be possible, even supposing the colonies to to have the power of arranging the time-tables on both sides of Panama, to give a fortnightly communication between New South Wales and England." It was because they could not give a fortnightly communication that the Victorian Government would have nothing to do with ifc. Hon. members knew very well that, when the agreement was entered into between New Zealand and the colony of New South Wales, it was expected that the other colonies would pay some portion of the expense of the service ; but the Imperial Government repudiated it. They saw it was useless, and had refused to contribute one farthing towards the maintenance of this very expensive and useless service. The Melbourne Government had also declined. So half the £55,000 was taken away from our Treasury to support a service which was perfectly worthless to New South Wales. The P. aud O. Company proposed first a monthly and then a fortuightly service. We could support afortnightly service by the P. andO. Company for something le>-s than £29,000 a year Was it just then that we should waste £46,400, and not get a fortnightly service after all ? If we had a large surplus iv our Treasury we might afford to carry ou such undertakings ; but seeing that our ways and means were narrow we had a right to take into consideration how we could best expend our money. A private individual, with limited means, who had two ways of investiug his capital, would well consider by which enterprise he could obtain the greatest benefit and the quickest return. He (Mr. Lucas) could perceive little difference between a private individual and New South Wales in that regard. This colony had limited means, and there were two ways in which it could invest this £55,000. One was by continuing postal communication via Panama, and the other by establishing railway communication between one of our inland navigable rivers and this noble harbour of Port JacksoD. As both those enterprises would cost about the same sum per annum, he believed they had not only a right, but that it was their special duty to consider well which of these two enterprises would ensure for the country the largest amount of wealth and prosperity. The strenuous advocates of the Panama service, with the exception of the Colonial Secretary, who seemed horrified at the idea of strangling his own bantling, had long since acknowledged that, so far as the ostensible object was concerned, namely, postal communication, it had been a great failure and a scandalous waste of public money. He brought this motion forward in order to give them an opportunity of withdrawing the support they had given to it. No doubt they were deceived in the matter. They were led to expect large benefits from an increase of population, which the passenger traffic by this route would afford. They were told that each boat would add 1,200 to our population, and that these would be intelligent people — capitalists and industrious artisans. The Colonial Secretary also so far indulged his imagination as to state that by this postal service we should have £186,000 a-year rolling into the pockets of the people of Sydney, and that the boats arriving here would revive the drooping trade of the port. These proved to be mere chimeras of the hon. member's brain ; but they were not harmless fancies, because they had led to enormous loss by the country. The passengers we were promised by every boat had dwindled down to sixteen, instead of having our population increased by 1,200 persons per annum. These boats coming here did not give an accession of a single individual to our numbers. Then the promised expenditure of £10,000 or £12,000 per annum in this port had dwindled down to £200, because they took in their live stock and other supplies at New Zealand. So great a failure indeed had the project proved chat he believed ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in the colony had come to the conclusion that it was a waste of public money to continue it any longer. He would ask attention while he drew a comparison between this service and that of the P. and O. Company, and he had taken the figures he should use from official documents. [Attention called to the state of the House, and quorum formed.] He found that the Panama boats occupied 62 days 5 hours in the passage between Loudon and Sydney, while the P. and O. Company's boats occupied only 49 days 4 hours via Marseilles, and 55 days via Southampton. This would be 13 days m favour of the P. and O. boats via Marseilles, and seven days via Southampton. The Panama service cost us £55,000 per annum, and that of the P. aud O. Company only £20,400, and we received £7,250 per annum as postage from the P. and O. mails, and only £2,100 per annum fiom the Panama mails. So that we lost £52,900 a year by the Panama service, and only £13,200 by that of the P. and O. Company. On an average we received 19,000 letters and 22,780 newspapers by each of the P. and O. Company's boats, and only 4,960 letters and 2, 150 newspapers by each boat of the Panama line, being four letters and above ten newspapers by the P. and O. boats to one letter and one newspaper by the Panama boats. While this was the case the Panama line cost us three times as much as the Suez line. The two services together cost us something like £75,000 per annum, and yet we could get a fortnightly mail (which could not be obtained through the two lines) by the P. and O. Company for £29,000 a year. Bach letter by the Panama mails costs us about 18s., and each letter by Suez Is. 6d.; so that, the postage being 6d., the loss on each letter by Panama was 17s. 6d., and only Is. on each letter conveyed by the P. and O. Company. One of the benefits we were told we should receive from a Panama service was that to be derived from a large number of passengers ; but there was a large number of passengers by the P. and O. Company's boat 3. and this would always be the case when we consider that in the one case there was a long, dreary, uninteresting passage of sixty-two days over one of the worst seas in ths world, with liability to be attacked by raalignaut fever at the Isthmus ; while in the other case, either via Marseilles or Southampton, the passenger was a shorter time at sea, and passed through the most interesting parts of the world. He would not insult the understanding of those in the Chamber by attempting to compare any advantages the country could possibly receive from this Panama folly with the substantial and wide-spread benefits the country would derive if this £55,000 per annum, now absolutely thrown away, were appropriated as interest upon some £1,000,000 or so of capital employed in works that would, by facilitating communication, open up the interior, and lead to the developing its vast latent resources. This would give employment to an immense number of persons, and materially add to the wealth of the country. If hon. members desired to open up the country by railways, it was necessary to husband our means, and throw up unprofitable enterprises. It was by a strong conviction upon hi« mind that the money for this Panama mail service was wasted, that he had been induced to move the present resolution. In justicej ustice to the Colonial Secretary, ke might admit that, when the hon. member first moved in this matter, the hon. member was of opinion that it would be a benefit to the colony, and that he conscientiously believed thatit would prove advantageous : but now the hon. member must see that it was a failure, that the people far and wide were opposed to it, and that it was impossible it could be of such benefit as he calculated upon. The railway between New York and San Francisco would, in all probability, be opened in 1871, and notice should be given to the New Zealand Government^ that the contract waa to terminate at that period. He believed it would, by that route, only take forty-two days between Sydney and Great Britain, and this was an important consideration in connection witn the Panama contract. He should be sorry to propose anything that would have even the appearance of a breach of faith with the New Zealand Government, but he thought early notice should b©

given them tbat the agreement would terminate in 1871, otherwise the country might be burdened with this large useless expenditure for tome eighfceem months or two years longer. Mr. Mahtih said that the hon. member had spoken without being in possession of all the facts of the case, and the hon. member had assumed certain things were necessary. All the papers preliminary to the contract were printed, aud had been laid upon the table of the House, bat the actual contract had not been printed. He would ■ iggest to the hon. member the propriety of withdrawing his motion until the agreement could be Ja'd upon the table of the flou>e. He would lay the agreement on the table to-morrow. Mr. Lucas begged to withdraw his motion until the agreement was laid upon the table. The amendment was then by leare withdrawn.