POST OFFICE CHICANERY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 11, Issue 819, 19 January 1867, Page 4

POST OFFICE CHICANERY.

(From the "Wangauui Times.") We are informed by the Wellington Advertiser that nearly half of the letters which should have been transmitted by the Suez route on the 18th December have been detained at the Wellington post office, for transmission by the Panama steamer on the Bth instant, because they were not addressed via Suez. What means did the Postmaster-General take to inform the public that he would not do so ? What means has he. now taken to inform the public that he intends to continue the practice? The Government having laid a heavy tax upon newspapers, have now the audacity to write to postmasters instructing them to draw the attention of newspaper publishers to the various postal arrangements which from time to time appear in the Government Gazette, that they may thus obtain gratuitous publicity. Let the newspapers of the colony refuse to publish any such information unless paid for as advertisements, so long as their capital is specially selected for taxation. The vast amount of gratuitous publicity hitherto given to Government advertisements it now charged for will go far to balance the stamp account. The public will have no right to complain. Their representatives have been narrowminded enough to place a tax upon the dissemination of knowledge, and the Government which they tolerate are mean enough to send their employes round to ask gratuitous publicity for information which they are bound to give to the public. Half a mail is detained for twenty-three days in Wellington because the letters are not marked via Suez ! Will those not directed via Panama' be sent by the Suez route ?By no means. Cannot the Panama route stand upon its own merits without victimising the public and the P. and 0. Company, by such a paltry consideration as they can gain by this little bit of trickery ? Piles of letters are kept back from the one line to be sent by the other, although the PostmasterGeneral gave no notice of his intention to do so, but in the Government Gazette. Is not this mean underhand way of doing business calculated to induce merchants and others to send by the Suez route ? Many honest straightforward men will retaliate, even should it be to their, own disadvantage. District postmasters must find it a disagreeable task to solicit, at the desire of their' chief, gratuitous publication for post-office advertisements. The line of argument which we always maintained we maintain still. Had the Government to pay for advertising what the press published gratuitously, the cost would amount to more in the aggregate than the stamp tax upon newspapers, ergo the Government had value received for the transmission of newspapers free by post. The knowledge of the wealth and resources of the colony which the press disseminated throughout the mother country was of the utmost importance — of far more importance than a number of immigration agents could be, and yet a threepenny stamp upon each newspaper sent by the Panama line — so highly favored by the Government — will curtail that amount of information to a serious extent. Our monthly summary shall continue to bear on the face of it via Suez so long as the present system of chicanery exists, but we hope the next session of Parliament will put an end to it.