CALIFORNIAL MAIL SERVICE.

Marlborough Express, Volume IX, Issue 640, 12 September 1874, Page 7

CALIFORNIAL MAIL SERVICE.

Sib, — With this 1 hand you two letters on this subject written before the breakdown of the late service was known. This is the fourth con tract for the conveyance of the English Mail to which, the N. Z. Government have been parties. All have come to the same end. They have ruined the contractors, and been practically useless for the ostensible purpose for which they were established, viz., the conveyance of the Anglo-Australasian Mail. When the Panama Company *was wound up, all the shareholders' capital was lost, as the property hardly paid debentures aad unsecured creditors. Mr Hall's first contract was a losing affair ; so was Mr Webb's, and now it appears that the contractors for this last service are done up. One boat is seized m San Francisco. The owners of the Tartar and Cyphrenes have withdrawn them. TheA.S.N. Co. will not let any more boats to the contractors until arrears are paid. The service which Saul Samuel and Thomas Russel have taken so much trouble to establish, has come to an untimely end. For the third time New Zealand will be compelled to fall back on the Suez service, viz., on the collapse of the Panama, the Webb, and the late Hall services.

The best thing the New Zealand Government can do is to keep to it. Under the new arrangements, Victoria will convey the mails between Melbourne and Point de Galle, for the postage of Gd per \ oz. letter, and Id per newspaper, and Great Britain will do the same between Galle and Southhampton, for an inland rate of Id per letter^ and Jd per newspaper, with the exception qjj^pgyptian transit dues, which amounts to two-fifths of a penny on newspapers only. As however, it seems that the Suez Canal is shortly to be used for the mails, these dues will cease.

Of course this is the Southampton Branch. Those who -want speed can have their correspondence via Brindisi which is quite as much and a great deal more regular from New Zealand than .the route via San Francisco is likely to be. It is true the postage is four pence more, but this comes from the letter writers and not out of the Colonial Treasury . For a very large part of the corresrondencf speed is of uo consequence. Bankers and merchants require it and can pay for it. Thus by the Suez route the Colonial Treasury would receive six pence per letter and one penny per newspaper and the whole conveyance between Melbourne and London would be 7d per letter and l^d per newspaper. As for conveyance to and from Melbourne the boats must be paid for the conveyance of the Suez mail even with a San Francisco Service, and the number of letters is immaterial. Now the San Francisco Service has cost the N. Z. Treasury £40,000 per annum for conveyance between tne Colony and San Franand the transit charges. Now the whole conveyance from San Francisco to the United Kingdom as well as that from New York or Boston to San Francisco is done by the United States, and their charge is paid by the |British Government out of the postage collected m Europe ; what this charge is the N. Z. Parliamentary papers never say. The vote for postal purposes is taken m a, lump, but m 1872 the Sydney Morning Herald stated it at 3d per letter. Well on the San Francisco as on the Suez line the Postage is 6d per letter and Id per newspaper. Now what is the cost to the Treasury ; number of letters between the United Kingdom and New Zealand does not reach £600,000 per annum, and allow 900,000 newspapers &c, allow that 500,000 letters and all the newspapers go via San Francisco. This gives postage received m New Zealand and England £12,500 for letters and £3750 for newspapers, &c., or £16,250 of Postal receipts is to be set against £40,000 subsidy for conveyance between the Colony and San Francisco alone, or the loss is £23,750. Add to this the transit charges equal to 3d per letter on the whole mail £6,250 and the British inland rate. Now the British inland rate must be paid whether the mail goes by Suez or San Francisco, but on the Suez line Victoria takes the postage and Great Britain the inland rate. On the San Francisco this Colony takes the postage, but this does not pay the cqst of conveyance to California by £23,750, and m addition the Colony pays £6,250 to the United States, besides the inland rate to Great Britain. It is thus clear that the Colonial Treasury would save £30,000 per annum by giving up the San Francisco route. A sum equal to Is per letter on the whole correspondence. If our banks and merchants are really bo poor as not to be able to afford the 4d for the Brindisi route, let the Assembly send the whole of the letters by Brindisi, and they will yet save £20,000 per annum.

The long and the short of the matter is the Californian route is too long, and too difficult to compete with that via Suez, and it cannot be joined with it for a fortnightly mail even if it were equal to the Suez. It is true that m the Northern. Summer it is a favorite route for wealthy people who want to go to or from Europe, but it is not the part of Government to subsidise Steam Companies for this purpose. We have quite enough class legislation without that. As for trade with America, that depends on tariffs. Nothing can be more absurd than some statements about this route. Senator Cole m the early part of 1871 told the U. S. Senate that so great were the advantages of the Californian route" that finally the British Government would be induced to give up its present service to the East, and to send the Indian Mails via San Francisco. As Bombay is m about 72, and Calcutta about 90 east longitude fron Greenwich, I cannot see how sending the mail to Bombay through 288 or to Calcutta through 270 degrees of longitude instead of 72 and 90 could expedite its delivery. If Mr Cole was not a Senator, I should say he was an idiot. Perhaps he was both. But how about the

Senate which patiently listened to such nonsense? In January 1873 the Webb Subsidy Bill was again before the Senate, and was only defeated through the strenuous opposition of General Burnside on the two. grounds of the impossibility of inducing the Australian Colonies to accept the circuituous route via Auckland and the insumciencyoftheWebbsteatners. Onthis occasion the San Francisco Newsletter said that the statement of General Burnside, was too much even for the corruption of the lobbies, and that ib was not attempted to be denied that the price of the prssing of the Bill was to be the first year's subsidy. The Bill was to give an annual subsidy of 500,000 dollars, (£IOO,OOO sterling) for five years. The words can bear no other construction than that Mr Webb's supporters m the Senate were to divide the first year's subsidy among themselves as the price of their votes if the Bill lapsed. Of course under such arrangements the Senate was bound to listen to the nensense of Senator Cole, but how Mr Yogel came to vouch for the absurd statements of Mr Neilson, and to place them on the papers presented to the two Houses of the Assembly, and how the Assembly failed to see their absurdity, is more than I can conceive. The consequence was, the acceptance of the Webb contract, and the waste of ;6'100,000 of the money of the taxpayers of New Zealand. For Mr Neilson's statements, I must refer you to the next letter, No 2.

The session being over, Mr Yogel has carte hlanchb on this subject. What will he do ? Perhaps he may try to get up a company with a N.Z. Government guarantee to run the mails via California, ; something after the fashion of his proposed Polynesian Company. Getting up mail contracts and joint stock companies are his forte. Had he not been a Colonial statesman, he would have been a professional promoter. — Yours, &c,, Henry Cooke.