The New Zealand Herald. AUCKLAND, THURSDAY JAN. 25, 1866.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 686, 25 January 1866, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald.

AUCKLAND, THURSDAY JAN. 25, 1866.

SI'ECTEMUK AGENDO. " Give every man thine car, but few thy voice : Take each m,ill's censure, but reserve* thy judgment. This above all,—To thine be true ; Ami it must follow, us the nitrht the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Wk have again experienced, and for the third conscrutivo time, the arrival of the mail steamer Prince Alfred from Sydney without the Northern Island's portion of the English mail. It would seem that the Peninsular and Oriental Company's boat was delayed by rough weather in the Bay of Biscay. and by towing into harbour a Spanish , steamer disabled in the gale. The Sydney Herald, of the 17th, publishes a long and very independently worded defence made by I the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and addressed to the Postmaster-General of Great Britain in answer to the chnvges of incompetency and neglect urged ...against Ihein by the Australian Colonics. They simply state they cannot ailord to run lirst-class boats for the money, and that they have only their past services to offer as "a r guarantee for their future performances. It [ is clear that so loug as their contract continues we have nothing to look for but the . frequent recurrence of such delays as those ■ from which wo now suffer- If the northern 1 portion of this Colony is to have any relief ' from 'these annoyances it can only be by r such alteration in the. management of our intercolonial services as will neutralise the ill elforts of. the P. and O. Company's shortcomings. There could be 110 great difficulty in doing this, and Auckland has a right to demand equal justice with the rest of the Colony. I t is naturally enough urged by those who arc suffering from these irregularities that the mail steamer ought to be detained in Sydney until the mail shall have arrived, instead of leaving as she has just done with the fu!i knowledge that a certain short period of delay would enable her to bring on the mail and be back in Nydi'"\, even then;, some days before the departure of 'the outgoing mail. To this the i Company replies that sailing vessels laid on at Sydney at the time of the regular departure of the mail steamer take her freight, and very frequently her passengers also. In the present; instance the Company complains that about ono hundred tons of freight and several passengers were lost in consequence of the uncertainty of the steamer's date of sailing. When the steamer is detained, passengers and shippers, it is urged, are loud in their complaints, aud, when the steamer arrives late, extra labour and risk are incurred in hasty discharge. The delay, they say, is due to the irregularity of the P. and O. Company, and it is hard that they should have to share the bhune due alone to others. On this question we cannot agree with Captain Vine llall, or the company which ho represents. However blameworthy the P. and O. Company may bo as the primary cause of these irregularities, Captain Vine llall—when it is remembered how large an amount of New Zealand money the P.N.Z. and U.M. Company enjoys—cannot be said to have shown that regard to the convenience and interests of the Colony that was due from him. G-ranted, as a matter of business, that the New Zealand Government should pay a compensation of so much for each day that the Prince Alfred might be detained in Sydney waiting for the English mail, it does not follow that Captain Vine Hall, who is now in Sydney, sliould have for three consecutive months, to the great loss and inconvenience of the public, refused to detain the mail steamer until he had lirst obtained the sanction of the Government to such an arrangement. Our readers will recollect the letter addressed to the manager by Mr. Robert Gilfillan, of Sydney, in December last, how it was shown that no loss whatever would be caused! to the company by the detention of the steamer. Captain Hall nevertholeess, they will also remem-

ber, refused to detain her. The fact is the Prince Alfred is subsidized to mate one trip per month to Sydney and back for a particular purpose, and it makes no difference to her whether she lies the spare time in Sydney or Auckland Harbor, provided she has a sufficient time in each to load or unload cargo, coal, &c. Her wages and expenses are the same in one case as the other, and to say that sailing vessels, on account of the delay of two or even three days, would rob her of freight and passengers is what we cannot understand. The difference of time between the run of a steamer and a sailing vessel does not run it so close as to make three days delay in the departure of the former, bring her down to an equality in point of speed and certainty with the latter. There must have been some other cause, wo should imagine, for the loss of cargo in the present instance. Of one thing Captain Vino Hull may assure himself that Auckland and that portion of the Colony inconvenienced by the surly indifference manifested to their interests, will make a stand against the grant of a subsidy to a boat which, for the purpose for which it is subsidised, is worse than use ess. We would sooner by far see a fair amount paid to the " Circular Saw" fleet for the performance of this contract. The public would have its work fairly done, and at a leas cost. Capt. Hall, too, must bear in mind that awkward as he fancies that he can make himself to Auckland, Auckland can return the compliment. with interest, and another turn of the wheel may see the company he represents dependent, for the Panama and Inter-colonial monopolies, on the will of the Auckland House of Assembly to pay a share towards the New Zealand portion of the subsidy. "With regard to the probable date of the arrival of the mail, now overdue, we may state that the Alice Cameron is advertised to leave Sydney about the 20th, and possibly will leave on the 22nd, whether the authorities would place the mail on board of her we cannot say. The mail also might possibly arrive from Dunedin by the Lord. Ashley, duo on the 2Sth, that i; if the English mail should, have arrived in Melbourne before the departure of the Tararua for Dunedin. The Tararua could we believe wait a day or two for her, and the Lord Ashley would wait twenty-four hours beyond her time at Dunedin for the Tararua. If the mail does not arrive by one of these means, we need not look for it till the 4th proximo, and then there will be but barely two days to reply by the supplementary mail, and that time will, bo considerably lessened by the delay in the delivery of the letters winch, not coming by the regular mail steamer, will not be sorted on the passage.