THE POST OFFICE.

New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 16, 13 October 1841, Page 2

THE POST OFFICE.

Our Post Office is a wretched affair. The patience of the Public has been long tried, and it will be much disappointed, if the new Post-master-G enejal do not understand the duties of the situation, and set actively about them. We have just looked over the Estimates for the current year, and find that the provision for this service is paltry. The whole system of this department demands re-construction—it requires re-modelling, not only on account of its incompleteness and inadequacy, but also, because more extended and perfect arrangements might be made materially subservient to the general progress of the Country. We write untler particular provocation. We were exceedingly anxious to get the Port Nicholson journals yesterday (this is penned on Tuesday), and waited at the office of our paper much longer after the landing of the boats from the Victoria than was sufficient to distribute over a far larger town, a heavier mail than ever came here ; but we at last learned that the Post Office does not send out letters and papers. ■ We then climbed Shortland Crescent and found the Post Office shut.—»We called there about noon, to-day, and knocked in vain at the door of the little hut. Ab uno disce omnes. In the Towns of other Colonies- -to be precise we will say Hobart Town—en the arrival of a Mail of importance the Post Office is open, and letters are sent round at ten and eleven o'clock at night. We Itali ise the few last words to shew

that we deliberately make the statement. It is quite impossible to exaggerate the.evil consequences on the one hand, and the good effects on the other, resulting from an efficient or inefficient Post; an.l wherever measures are not in agitation to amend a mean and defective system, that people and Government must be poor

and stupid. We have alluded to the Government Estimates : touching these—verily the poverty of our means is conspicuous throughout ; and it strikes us, that poor we will remain, so long as the Government establishment is in some of ito branches so small. ' Our Government is in the conditiou of a manufacturer with imperfect and ' insufficient machinery—work cannot be well performed, or capital rapidly augmented. The Survey Establishment for instance.—A Survey of the whole country should be in.progress, for other objects than the mere division of the surface for sale ; and without reference to the proprietorship of the soil—to its belonging to tiie Crown or the Aborigines. If instead of the few gentlemen in this service there were four or five times as many (we repeat four or five times as many) and that in connexion with the more rapid survey, an Agent for the Colony were employed in England, to sell the Land, we should soon have, from the fund allotted in aid of the Revenue sufficient—and from that source we need it; for our Customs and other ordinary income, must for a long time be comparatively small. We should then, have capitalists, labourers, and mechanics, and our town and country would exhibit that active and exciting bustle—in the absence of which, Colonial life is scarcely endurable. .We should not then be imprisoned in this narrow isthmus—settlements would be formed in the heart of the country—.we should be in communicationwith the interior—the .resources of this splendid and most interesting Island would begin to be available—our older setttlers vvould'be getting wealthy, and we should be able to construct some indispensable public works—__LS£luding a few buildings to replace those dimi-

get on slowly in this Colony. It may be said, that great and perplexing difficulties bad to be overcome —that we began under embarrassing circumstances—that our position was peculiar, and all the saws that simple and inactive people do not question, and that timid, inert, and energetic folk avail themselves of, may be used to lull us into apathy; but doubt and dssatisfaction will remain. It is not only that little has been done, but little is doing, and every man in this dull, sleepy, unambitious community ...cannot conceal from his better judgment—is*secretly conscious of the discouraging fact. We write in haste. However interesting Nicholson news may"be, we are unable in this number to place it before cur readers.