THE POSTAL AND LIGHTHOUSE QUESTIONS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 75, 19 June 1866, Page 2

THE POSTAL AND LIGHTHOUSE QUESTIONS.

[From the Kelson Examiner, June 14.] Apart from those questions of general policy ■which are likely to be brought under the consideration of the Assembly during th 6 approaching session, and which are of equal importance to all parts of New Zealand, there are others immediately affecting our own province which it is to be hoped will not be lost sight of by our representa-' tives. On the list of these, we may place the present state of the inter-provincial mail service first ; and it will not be difficult to show that Nelson, together with Marlborough and Taranaki, is suffering disadvantages in this respect from which other parts of the colony are exempt. Under the new arrangement tor the inter-provincial mail service, Nelson has two regular opportunities every month for communicating with Wellington and the South — the dates of departure from this port being the 6th and 20th of each month. In addition to this, we now have the supplementary mail boat, which, on the 13th of every month,conveys the homeward Suez mail from Taranaki, Nelson, and Marlborough, to Wellington, and there meets the steamer which leaves that port on the 15th for Lyttelton,Dunedin,and the Bluff. Northward/the mail steamers leave this port on the 10th and 23rd. Excepting the occasional steamers which touch here on their way to other ports, and whose times of arrival and departure are quite uncertain, these are the only means that Nelson has of communicating with other parts of the colony. Let us now compare this state of things with the advantages enjoyed in this respect in other provinces. .From Port Chalmers and Lyttelton northwards — that is to say to Wellington — for Manukau and Auckland, there are four regular mail services monthly, the steamers leaving Port Chalmers on the sth, 12th, 19th, and 26th of each month, two of these boats passing up to Auckland by the East Coast of the North Island, and two by Cook Strait to Manukau on the West Coast ; of these two services, the only one from which Nelson gains any benefit is the latter. The return mails from the North are arranged in a corresponding manner. Between Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago, there is a regular mail four times a month. Two steamers sail from Auckland southwards, by the East Coast, on the 10th and 26th ; and two others by the West Coast, on the 3rd and 17th of every month, from Manukau. Nelson has the advantage of only two of these boats — the West Coast service — which arrive here on the sth and 19th from Manukau and Taranaki, and leave again, as we have before stated, on the 6th and 20th, for Wellington and the Southern ports, which have, in addition, the two East Coastservice steamers, from Auckland, Tauranga, and Napier. From this it is evident that this province is deprived of facilities of mail communication which,* with the exception of our two fellow-sufferers, Taranaki and Marlborough, every province, save Hawke's Bay enjoys. The commercial importance of Nelson is sufficiently great to entitle it to claim the same amount of postal communication as is afforded to Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago. But it is not merely for the sake of Nelson that we urge the subject on the attention of our members, for other provinces will find the inconvenience of having their postal intercourse restricted with Nelson, as we are to be wanting means of communication with them. What is required, and what our representatives will be justified in asking, is to give Nelson a weekly mail communication. The imperfect service given us by the steamer which has been subsidized to convey our Suez mail to Wellington, on the 13th of each month, should be rendered complete by causing the boat to run from Wellington to Manukau, calling at all the intermediate ports both going and returning, instead of despatching her from Wellington to Taranaki direct, and returning by way of Nelson and Picton. This short route will furnish such a limited passenger trafiic, that we believe it would pay the steamer better, for the same subsidy, to run through from Wellington to Manukau and back, calling at all the ports both ways, than to perform the partial service now stipulated for. If this were done, the three provinces of Nelson, Marlborough, and Taranaki, would have a third communication each month with Auckland. Another and strong reason for making this subsidiary service to Taranaki a through service to Manukau, is that the boat would leave Wellington on her voyage North on the 29th of the month, and in the event of the steamer which takes her departure from Wellington on the 22nd, sailing before the arrival af the English mail-steamer from Panama, iue on the 21st, the three Provinces of Marlborough, Nelson, and Taranaki, would have

a chance given them of obtaining their mails on the Ist or 2nd of the following month, in time to reply by the liomeward mail, instead of waiting until the 10th or 11th, and so losing a month's course of post. The only service that would remain to be provided for, and is likely to cost the Government any additional subsidy to that now being paid, is a fourth steamer from Wellington to Manukau, leaving the former port about the 16th of each month, and returning there about the 29th. Without this service, the three provinces of Marlborough, Nelson, and Taranaki will, at one period of every month, be without mails both from North and South for a fortnight. On general grounds, this is not a satisfactory state of things. For three of the provinces of the colony to be without the means of intercourse with the Government the entire half of every month; to be unable for that period to address the Supreme Court, however great the emergency ; and to be kept in ignorance for an entire fortnight of the proceedings of its representatives during the sitting of Parliaments not to be tolerated quietly. If a saving is necessary in postal subsidies, let it be effected where it can be better spared, but not in curtailing the internal intercourse of the colony. The position of Taranaki is not yet such that it can afford to be cut off from the Government and the rest of the colony for the entire half of every month. Another grievance to which we lay the claim of ownership, is the prolonged delay in the erection of a lighthouse on the Farewell Spit. This work has now become not only one of advisability, but of almost imperative necessity, if we wish to insure the safety of vessels making the land at the entrance of Cook Strait. The large trade which the Westland gold-fields have given rise to, and the increase in the number of fine steamers and sailing vessels which are constantly entering the Strait from the Northward and Westward, besides those from Hokitika and the Grey, is a sufficient reason for the work being taken in hand at once. In this instance too it is not Nelson alone which will be benefited. A large proportion of the shipping which pass Cape Farewell, proceed direct through the Strait ; so that the trade of Wellington, to which" city, as the capital of the colony, all lines of steam communication converge, is as largely interested as ourselves in the subject. This matter has often been discussed before, and some little time ago, the Government went so far as to obtain the opinion of a gentleman who had been sent out to superintend the erection of lighthouses in the colony, as to the feasibility of erecting a lighthouse on the Farewell Spit. The report furnished was, we believe, that a lightship would answer better than a lighthouse. It must be recollected, however, that as yet no professional engineer has reported on the subject. Mr. Balfour, recently the marine engineer to the Province of Otago, who has had more experience in works of this description than any other engineer in the colony, dissents altogether from the report in favour of a lightship, which he conceives would be atotal mistake, less efficient than a lighthouse, and more costly to maintain. We have always imagined, and are still of the same opinion, that lightships are only used under peculiar circumstances, where a difficulty exists in forming the solid foundation required for a lighthouse, or to mark the extremes of shifting sands, where in a few years a costly building might be rendered useless from the position of the danger it was intended to mark having altered. No difficulty whatever exists in forming a foundation for such a structure on the Farewell Spit, and no contingency, however remote, is to be feared of the spit alteringso much as to render a permanent light erected on it of no use. We have brought these two subjects under the notice of our readers and their representatives, in the hope that the session of the Assembly may not be allowed to pass without their being thoroughly inquired into and the wants supplied.