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New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6750, 6 July 1883, Page 4

In our yesterday's issue we published a very able speech, delivered on Tuesday in the Legislative Council, by the Premier, on the San Francisco mail service. "We venture to think that the facts and figures contained were a surprise to many, and that there are few amongst us who were aware that this mail service has such an impregnable position, and thnt it is defensible by such indisputable arguments. We capitulate a faw of the points for we think they sheuld be fixed in the memory. On the question of expense • Though the New Zealand subsidy is £32,500, the net co3t to the colony is now but a little over £3000. I: has yearly been becoming less, and in a couple of years will be nil. Kay, more, if, as is fully expected, the American Government will give a subsidy, there will be an absolute profit to the colony on this mail service. Again, it conveyed last year for New Zealand 901,860 letters, this year it will be in round numbers a million ; as against 126,000 borne for the colony by the Brindisi mail, which cost the colony last year £4715. In other words the San Francisco service doeseighttimesthe work fora far smaller cost, while the same numbers show that it ie eight times more convenient and popular with the writers of letters. Again, its mails have reached JSew Zealand, at Auckland, in an average of 38 days and a fraction, as against 47 days and a fraction, the average time in which the Brindisi mails have reached Few Zealand at Dunedin. In other words, the San Francisco service has been 9 days quicker in doing its work than the Brindisi service ; and the coctract provides that this year there will be an acceleration of one day, and next year o£ two days in the transit of the mails ; and as the Union Company's fast boat the Takapuna will shortly be on the coast, and mails will be borne from Manukau to Dunedin in forty-eight hours, the San Francisco mails will reach Dunedin in actually nine days shorter time from England than the time required for the Brindisi mails to arrive at the same place. As the people of Auckland have a special interest in, and attachment to, the San Francisco service, it will be (veil to bear these facts in mind, if for nothing else, to enable them to keep their souls in perfect peace, when the heathen rage, and people imagine vain things about ocean mail services.