THE STEAM POSTAL SERVICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 360, 23 October 1858, Page 6

THE STEAM POSTAL SERVICE.

(From the Southern Cross, September 3; 1858.)

This long talked of service i 3 now beginning to assume the appearance of reality. Mr. Coleman, of the firm of Pearson & Co., the contractors, has arrived in Auckland, for the purpose of completing all necessary arrangements, and the Lord Ashley, one of the interprovincial steamers, with about 100 passengers on board, may be expected almost immediately in port. Having some 250 or 300 tons of Welsh coal on board, she was to steam as long as that should last.

The Lord Worsley was to have sailed six days after the Lord Ashley, for Otago and Wellington. Having about 50 tons more coal on board than the Lord Ashley, and also sailing rather faster, she may not improbably have already reached the first place of her destination.

As the contractors consider it to be entirely a New Zealand service, the head quarters being in the colony, it is proposed to carry it on under the title of the New Zealand Royal Mail Steam Company.

The vessels included in the contract are — ThePrince Alfred (formerly Prince Oscar), 1000 tons burden, or about 800 tons register, 200 horse power, and accommodation for 60 first class passengers. The Lord Ashley and Lord Worsley, each 500 tons, 100 horse power, and accommodation for 30 first class passengers. The Airedale, 400 tons, and 90 horse power, with accommodation for 20.

The route proposed under the contract is as follows: — The largest vessel, the "Prince Alfred," to perform the monthly service between Sydney and Nelson ; and after transhipping the Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago mails into one of the smaller steamers' waiting at Nelson to receive them, _to proceed to New Plymouth, land the mails' weather permitting only, and thence to the Manukau. There to land the Auckland mails, receive the return mails, conveying them via New Plymouth and Nelson to Sydney.

The smaller vessels, on the inter-provincial service, would meanwhile have collected the return mails from Otago, Canterbury, and Wellington ; and be ready to tranship them at Nelson into the " Prince Alfred," which would by that have returned.

This arrangement would certainly embrace a monthly postal service between each of the provincial ports and Sydney for England ; still we think that it is still susceptible of amelioration. The most is not yet made of the force at our disposal. All the three smaller vessels are destined for the inter-provincial service, one, probably the Lord Worsley, to be kept laid up, in readiness for the event of an accident to either of the others. It is questionable, to us, whether for the present a vessel of the size of the " Prince Alfred " ought to go to the Manukau at all — whether goods and passengers, enough to be remunerative, could be obtained there. Speaking with some

hesitation, we incline to think that a direct communication should rather be maintained, between Sydney and*the Port of Auckland, by the " Prince Alfred ;" and that one of the proposed inter-provincial steamers should^ue" employed from Wellington and Nelson" to Melbourne. This might necessitate the keeping on of the " White Swan ;" but we think that the colony could afford it. It appears to us that a vessel of 1000 tons burden is inconveniently large for the service to be performed, throwing a large unnecessary expense upon the contractors. The danger to be apprehended is, that unless the trade with Sydney should prove brisker than there is reason to expect, the weight of the charges should oblige the contractors even to break the contract. But the employment of a vessel of at least that size was insisted upon by the Home Government, who, accustomed to the magnificent scale upon which the steam postal service is conducted at home, and imperfectly acquainted with the requirements of this colony, were of opinion that the "Lord Ashley" and the " Lord Worsley " were too small, and, we believe, but for the laying on of the " Prince Alfred " would hare repudiated the whole arrangement.