THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1883.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6829, 6 October 1883, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1883.

Though England has learned much from her colonies, there are some things in the way of reform in which we must still follow her lead. One of these is development of the postal service. The wonderful strides which postal reform has taken in the past few years in England have emanated from the mind of Mr. Fawcett, who, despite of physical disability that would have consigned ninety-nine out of a hundred to a life of almost uselessness, has set the impress of his genius on postal arrangements in such a manner as has been paralleled by nothing since the introduction of the penny postage. It is not unreasonable that we have not gone pari passu with the mother country in granting postal conveniences j for the circumstances of a densely peopled country like Great Britain, where railway communications form a perfect network covering the country, are not the same as those of a sparsely peopled territory, with only arterial iines of railway, and even these fragmentary, with unmade roads and tracks supplementing the means of communication.

At the same time it is possible that we are disposed to make too much of these obstacles, and it may be that the time has come for seriously considering whether the system of the parcels post, now successfully established in England, may not be applicable to New Zealand. This idea may be stimulated by the knowledge that the sister colonies of South Australia and New South Wales have resolved to risk the danger and make the venture, the former colony having actually established the parcels post on the Ist of the present month, and the Postmaster-General of New South Wales having announced the scheme as part of the coming Ministerial policy. The circumstances of those two colonies are not so dissimilar to. those of New Zealand but that we might hope for equal success; indeed, in the matter of condensation of population and distance of centres of settlement New Zealand compares very favourably with either.

The system of the parcels post is far from being an improved experiment. Although only of two months' standing in England, and yet in a sense on its trial there, the practice of transmitting almost any kind of goods by post has been for years familiar on the Continent, where the convenience it affords is so great _ and so popular, that its cessation or interruption would embarrass the ■whole course of trade. Under it has grown up a system by which popular mercantile establishments like the Bon Marche, or Magasin du Louvre, in Paris, have their customers in almost every town and hamlet in Prance ; and similar results will no doubt follow from the development of the system in England. The I benefits thus afforded to mercan-1 tile enterprise are obvious, but the

conveniences and advantages afforded to the general community from being enabled to do their marketing and obtain their supplies of every possible

kind from any part of the kingdom at a merely nominal expense for conveyance, and that as regularly as a postal delivery of letters, are simply beyond expression. The idea of sending such miscellaneous articles as tea portmanteaus, boots, butter, hats, clothing, bread, dresses, or anything within the circumference of six feet and'the weight of half a stone, through the

agency of the Post Office seems extremely impracticable, but the operation of the system in England during the short: period of which we have received information has icully borne out continental experience, and has elicited the greatest popularity. The fact of its actual establishment in South Australia within the past few days and its intended adoption forthwith in New South Wales gives us reason to anticipate that no very great length of time will elapse until this greatest feat of postal development will commend itself to the attention of our postal authori-1 ties, and be extended to New Zealand..