The Ensign. GORE: THURSDAY, FEB. 23, 1907.

Mataura Ensign, 28 February 1907, Page 2

The Ensign. GORE: THURSDAY, FEB. 23, 1907.

A DISAPPOINTING SERvICE. The Sun Francisco mail service has been given a. fair trial under American management, and has fallen iur short of the reasonable expectations that were formed by the public as .to its trustworthiness and efficiency. Wot only have the Spreckels' boat* been painfully slow, but they have also been exceedingly irregular, and, us a consequence of their pronounced failure to keep reasonably near the scheduled times, the confidence of. the commercial world in the Yankee "greyhounds"' has been rudely shattered. The' two mail boats on the track, the Sonoma and Ventura, havo been so eccentric in their wanderings over the watery plains that they havo been aptly dubbed by the smarting public (he ''Slonoma" and '•'Misad-Ventura," and the- names will doubtless stick to them.' The Ventura's effort to get into Auckland within a week of the contract time disarranged her engines to such an extent that she took a week to roach Sydney, and then had to lay up for a month to effect repairs; consequently there is no outgoing steamer till the middle of March. By these perpetually recurring delays and mishaps the patience of the public has been exhausted, and as the time of the contract has' just expired it is unlikely that it will be renewed. It is true that the San Francisco carth'qlUako disarranged to some extent the. service, but ample time has been allowed for its recovery, and, so far from an improvement being effected, the service si;ems to be drifting from bad to worse. The sooner the service is discontinued, and some oilier line substituted that will combine punctuality with regularity, the sooner will the business world be pleased.