ANGLO COLONIAL POSTAL CONFERENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10832, 16 August 1898, Page 6

ANGLO COLONIAL POSTAL CONFERENCE.

CABLE AND POSTAL RATES. OFFICIAL OPINIONS. [n'.'lM Of It LONDON IDIIKKSPONJIKXT.] ! London-, July 8. ■ Representatives of the Colonial Office, Treason*, and Post Office, the . ostmasters- ' General of Canada and Bengal, the High I Commissioner for Canada, and the Agents- ! General for the various Australian and South j African colonies and New Zealand, met at the Westminster Palace Hotel on Tuesday I last to reconsider the postal arrangements between the Home country and the colonies. '1 tie Duke in Aoilnlk presided. The only matter then dealt with was the proposed reduction in the postal rate. The representatives of the British Government adhered to the original proposal of a reduction from 2Jd to 2d. Sir Daniel Cooper, the Agent-General for New South Wales, on lu'.liali in the iiust-nil isian colonies, expressed the inability of himself and his colleagues to agree to any reduction whatever. On the ouier mum, .lie i'ostimister-Ucnci'al of Canada said that in the Dominion they did not allow finance to enter into the question, and that they considered that a lower rate j of postage would have a tendency to bind the Empire more closely together. Sir David ieiiiKiiii, on i lie part of uape Colony, said that his Government was prepared to reduce the ocean postage for all parts of the Empire to Id ; and Sir Walter Peace, the AgentGeneral for-Natal, expressed a belief that his Government would take the same view. The Canadian Postmaster-General moved that the rate of ocean postage be reduced to one penny. The Agent-General for New Zealand, who realty voiced the views of the other Australasia colonies, opposed the reduction. He pointed out that it could not be carried into effect without interfering with the internal postage rates in me colonies. That would mean a serious loss to the colonies' permanent | revenue, and therefore the matter could not be entertained. Taxation would have to be imposed to make up for the loss, and that was out of the question. It was one thing for the Cape of Good Hope, where there was an internal postage rate of Id. to go in for such a change, and the same remark applied to Canada. But their mails had not to traverse such a large mileage as those from Australia and New Zealand. Nothing definite, however, has yet been done, and the Conference stands adjourned until next week. Before the Conference concludes something may be suggested, if only in debate, toward expediting the mail services to New Zealand, as well as to the Australian colonies. Indeed, Mr. Reeves out- ] lined this phase of the question on Tuesday. The cost of cable services does not enter j an appearance among the agenda, the Post and Telegraph Departments here being separate, and not one, as in the colonies. In conversation, however, I gathered that the feeling is that there is no chance of a reduction in cable rates until the Pacific cable is an accomplished fact. People in New Zealand wonder how it is that information about the colony does not reach London in greater volume than at present. The colonial representatives at this end, when the question is put to them, simply say the charges for , newspaper cables are too extravagant to i allow it. A reduction here, they aver, is i more desirable than in the postage rates'