NEW POSTAL ARRANGEMENT.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXI, Issue 31, 12 April 1862, Page 2

NEW POSTAL ARRANGEMENT.

Some very important changes are about to j be made in our steam postal service, the exact character of which we do not fully understand, as no authorized account of them has yet been published. So far as we can gather, there is to be a steamer to convey the mails between Melbourne and Otago, and another vessel to run between Sydney and Auckland, so that both North and South will have a trunk line of communication, terminating, however; at the ports named. To the remaining provinces the mails are to be forwarded by coasting steamers, for which service three vessels have been engaged, and the White Swan and Queen are to run fortnightly between Southland, and Auckland, calling at tho in-

termediate provinces of Ofcago, Canterbury, •'Wellington, and Hawke's Bay, and thus a regular communication between these six provinces will be secured, besides ensuring to them an earlier delivery of their English mails. But we hear of no provision for the provinces of Marlborough, Nelson, and Taranaki, though of course they are not overlooked; but whether it is proposed to send us our mail from Manukau or from Wellington by an additional steamer we have yet to learn, but a steam service is doubtless contemplated for Cook Strait and the western coast of the North Island. These changes involve two considerations. First, the additional cost of this arrangement to the colony, as compared with the present one ; and, secondly, how far it will satisfy the general public of New Zealand. Of the first we can say nothing, and we shall have to wait probably for the Ministerial financial statement before we get full information on that head, but we shall find, we fear, that it is rather a costly business. On the second point we can speak with more confidence, and the substitution of inter-provincial service for a trunk [line traffic highly displeases the provinces of Canterbury, Wellington, and Nelson. It is proposed, however, for the present to continue a monthly steamer between Sydney and Cook Strait, to call at any two provinces out of the three which suffer by this new arrangement, in order to afford these provinces an opportunity of joining in a subsidy to the Inter-colonial Eoyal Mail Company of £5,000, towards which the General Government will give £2,000. This, then, will be a matter for local consideration. If a steamer could be continued between Sydney, Nelson, Wellington, and Canterbury, the new arrangement would be far more perfect [than the old one, but, wanting this, it will give great dissatisfaction, as Auckland will be gratified at the expense of the central provinces of the colony.