THE ENGLISH MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 872, 30 August 1866, Page 3

THE ENGLISH MAIL.

Lest our readers should; be led astray by' the inoorrect statement. publisLed.bj.our coterbporary yesterday;, that no jinglish inail will be made up for or despatched by the s.s. Auckland on the Ist Septeniber, we take this opportunity of setting the public fight upon the matter. We were, ourselves, on: Tuesday struck with, the absence of,any notification in. the mail advertisement that the s.s. Auckland would.take any English, mail, but decided on first seeing the chief Postmaster instead of writing haphazard oil the subject. That gentleman , yery courteously Assured us yesterday that if the despatch of a mail by the Auckland would be a ; matter of convenience to the public, it "sshouid bo dcine,. and on our assuring, him.that it wbiilcl be considered so, the bfd'er to make up a mail was at pn.ce;.given, as may. ; be. seen by our .mail notices.o.f this morning.' ....... .'■... . The reason given to. us ; .that ,no such notice, had been issued,. 1 vra.i that as a mail ia made up for the boat, which leaves : Auc]ifend &n thfe mail .forwarded by whicli reaches Melbourne, on ' the $7th, -via \Bort was hot thought that a mail sp'earijr as the JLsfr would oe made use of by th° public. These 'faets. , i \rere^made"' ,, iii6'^ii'_ : t , QVOu» cotemporary on Tuesday, ibiat: sjippressefl by him in his article pf yesterday niorningi -the time...h'e thus, " It .is; apparent :that tho Government means ..to .coerce.'the .commercial .ol.asses.'to despatch the'ir corr.espondence.by way of Manama/' he.was-well, aware that the Government at. Wellington; liad ; issued no,; orders in.tlie .niatter of inaking up.a mail for despatch by the Auckland, and that the: simple Teasdn: w:as : as : jvehaye stated; Auckland'haa causes' of : ■ cwmplaiht; trite and .j^t;'. quite sufficient la ntunber "w;e shpflld. have thought

without resorting to accusations -which, cannot be maintained, End charges which are utterly groundless. The people of this province do not care to trust the Panama mail, and would far sooner send their letters by the Suez route. JN T ot only so, but newspapers sent by Panama are taxed with special postage. Again, the Auckland public do notthinkit advisable that, while using the Suez route, they should be subjected to the chance of a breakdown iu the use of a vessel leaving-Auckland on tho 12th, catching tho Melbourne boat at Port Chalmers on the 20th, and arriving in Melbourne on the 27th, the day previous to tho departure of the English mail, via Suez, from that port. Tho public prefer as a rule the certainty of transmission ensured by despatching their letters by the boat leaving Auckland for Sydney on the Ist of the month. As yet, however, no failure has occurred in the transmission of what is called the supplementary mail, namely, that leaving on the 12th; still, if it were only for tho convenience of sending newspapers to England, the public would have a right to look for the transmission of an English mail by the Auckland. This view of the case had not struck the Chief Postmaster, but it is duo to that gentleman to state that at once, upon the representation beiug made to him, he expressed his willingness to accommodate the public in the way desired. We cannot pass by the remarks of our cotemporary without giving the most distinct and flat contradiction to the assertion that " the £Tew Zealand post office has got into hopeless confusion," that their officials are fairly bothered what to do," and that " there is neither system, nor order, nor method." Of what value these general charges may be, can be judged from the value of fte specific charge made by our cotenrporary against the department of an attempt at coercing the people of this province into using the Panama service. Such charge wo have shown is altogether groundless, indeed we need not tell our cotemporary that it was so, for he knew it on Tuesday.