Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9186, 16 October 1888, Page 4

Therb is probably more reticence on the part of the Government respecting mail services than the public would desire. Our cable messages tell us that the Agent-General is in treaty with the Canadian Paciiic Company in reference to a mail service to New Zealand ; and that the Company have expressed their willingness to deliver mails in Brisbane under thirty-five clays from 'London, and to establish branches at Fiji and Auckland for a moderate subsidy. The Company may be willing to do all tins, but we venture to think that similar willingness with respect to this colony being connected by a branch lino to Fiji, will not be so generally entertained in the colony itself, and that the public should bo placed in possession of the ollicial instructions under which Sir Dillon '>oil is acting in this matter. It will be recollected that when the United States Government agreed to give some .-Si 10,000 a-yearas subsidy to the San Francisco Service, though the information was telegraphed to the Government of New Zealand, we were left to learn the news by mail. That may have been political strategy, and judicious for the time ; but if negotiations are proceeding at home, under official instructions, for establishing a Canadian Service with the colonies, the public should be placed in possession of the nature of the proposals before any definite arrangement is concluded which may be ultimately made binding on the colony. If a branch service with Fiji is part of the arrangement—and the Canadian Pacific Company appear to have always contemplated such a connection— the sooner and more emphatically that company is disabused of the idea that it will meet the requirements of this colony, the better. To be shunted off the route across the Pacific would be the abandonment on the part of this colony of the geographical advantages which New Zealand has, in being the nearest point in the Australasian group to America and England by the transPacitic route ; and it is a condition against which the colony has always been obliged to guard when negotiating from time to time for the San Francisco Service ; and if encouragement : s given to the establishment of such an Aus-tralian-Canadian service, it may in so far diminish the ability of New Zealand to maintain a service* in which it will be on the direct line of travel. We have not yet fully tested the extent co which the United States Government will go in preventing the cessation of a service with San Francisco, and the chances are entirely in favour of New Zealand being called on to contribute but a very moderate subsidy for the carrying of our mail. >y that port. If the CanadianPacitic Company may be induced to send their steamers to New Zealand without a break at Fiji its proposals may be worth considering ; but if we are to have any participation in the Canadian route it should be made an initial condition in all negotiations that a branch service is wholly inadmissible. This negotiation on the part of the AgentGeneral for the colony, coupled with the expression of an intention on the part of the Canadian-Pacilic Company to give us a branch service, has a sinister look, and the public should insist on knowing what are the specific instructions, if any, under which the Agent-General is proceeding.