INTER-PROVINCIAL POSTAL SERVICES.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1995, 27 September 1869, Page 3

INTER-PROVINCIAL POSTAL SERVICES.

Commenting on Mr Macandrew’s motion for the withdrawal of subsidies to the mail boats, the Wellington hidependent observes : As an economical measure, the wisdom of Mr Macandrew’s proposal is open to dispute. In fact, we believe that the withdrawal of the present subsidies will be found, like all false economy, to be much more expensive in the end. The present charge on the Colony for the inter-colonial service is L 5,525; for the inter-provincial service, L 10,650, Messrs M'Meckan and Blackwood undertake the one —the Circular Saw Company the other. It may be necessary to explain that the contract for the first-mentioned service is at the rate of LI 1,050 per annum, ot which the Home Government pays one moiety, New Zealand the other. The other service is a charge on the Colony alone. By the inter-colo-nial steamer the English mails are conveyed to and from Melbourne and Wellington thirteen times in the year. The inter-provincial service provides for the collection of mails from all the different provinces at the latest possible period before the departure of the Melbourne boat from Wellington, and their distribution at the earliest possible time after the mails arrive in New Zealand. For these services three steamers are employed plying between Wellington and the several ports of Napier, Manakau, and the Bluff. The question arises how much of this sum of LI 6,175 can possibly be saved by the adoption of the hap-hazard method of trusting to unsubsidised boats. In the first place, the penny a letter payment to unsubsidised vessels, on the inter-colonial line, and halfpenny a letter on the interprovincial would have to be made, even if the mails were sent by sailins: vessel. This charge alone would O O amount to LG,978 on the letters passed last year between England and New Zealand. In addition to this, the House agreed to place in the hands of the Government, a sum of L 2,500 for the six months after the expiry of the present contracts (which is equivalent to L 5,000 per annum) to be expended “ in gratuities in certain cases where it is desirable to pay steamers to delay a day or two for mails ” : and in addition tq this, the Cqlonial [freasqrer suggested that a bonus on the letters brought down might be given in respect of English mails. Thus for a very problem atical saving of LG, 95 7, the whole postal system is to be deranged, and both the Colony and the Provinces left to the tender mercies of the two companies which must in any case be employed to carry the mails ; of course the managers will so time tho departure of their steamers that the Government will find it always “ desirable to pay steamers on account of their delaying a day or two for mails.” When we look at the postal returns and find that in 1865 we were paying LG8,845 13s Id for the same service twelve times a year as is now rendered thirteen times for L1G,715, wo are forced into tho conclusion that the present subsidy is a low charge for the work performed, or else that the legislators of that year had far more money than wisdom at their command.

The colony has been too long in the enjoyment of a regular communication to be content with the uncertainty which special arrangements at each port with every mail implies. Irregularity' wouid be a matter of too serious consequence to all the interests of New Zealand to be allowed for the want of an expenditure of L 6,000 or L 7,000 per annum. The same maxim may be applied to a postal service which holds good of a x’oad, “It is only as good as its worst part,” and an expenditure of L 26,000 to bring the mail rapidly to Melbourne would be rendered useless, if for the rest of the way the Colony is to return to the almost forgotten times of twelve years ago, when the only steamer in New Zealand yvaters was sent back to England because she could find no work to do, and the arrival of the English mails depended on the convenience and very indifferent sailing qualities of a little brigantine. The present mail contracts expire about the end of the year;— before that, Ministers will probably find themselves forced into a reversal of the resolution carried evidentiy without due consideration on the part of the Opposition and spite of a strong protest from the Treasury Bench.