THE PROPOSED POSTAL REDUCTIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9089, 28 April 1890, Page 3

THE PROPOSED POSTAL REDUCTIONS.

TO THE BDITOS. Sib, —Ifc appears probable that Parliament will be asked to consider the question, of consenting to such reductions on postage between the Colony and,.England as to entail a large reduction in our revenue, and also the question of our joining the Postal Union. The advantages of belonging to the Union to some countries must be enormous, but all the correspondence between New Zealand and the whole of the rest of the world, apart from the United Kingdom, cannot amount to anything very considerable. The present postage between the Colony and England is not so prohibitive as to decrease correspondence either way, or to do us any injury whatever. No doubt the English merchants would be benefited by the proposed reductions, if made, and that mostly at our expense. If the Colony is to pay the piper for any postal reductions, “ Let charity begin at home,” and if we pay, let us pay for what will benefit ourselves most—viz., Reduce our local postage all round, the absurdly high rates for which are so patent to all that I need not waste your space by enlarging upon them, and therefore we may venture to hope that the Committees of the various Chambers of Commerce throughout the Colony (even though composed mostly of men with considerable English correspondence) will use every effort to prevent our paying for the shadow of English reductions, until we have first secured the substance of considerable reductions in our local postage rates.—l am, &c„ COMMON SENSE.