FRENCH POSTAL SERVICE WITH NEW CALEDONIA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1242, 9 January 1883, Page 3

FRENCH POSTAL SERVICE WITH NEW CALEDONIA.

Ti|E Melbourne " Age ” announces the inauguration of the French postal service with New Caledonia and the Australian Colonies. The arrangeihents of the Company have necessarily been somewhat delayed oaring to protracted negotiations with the French Government, but we now believe (says the “Age”) that every!hin g has been settled on a satisfactory basis, and the time table and other details are definitely fixed fo the regular conduct of the service. The first r gteamer, the Natal, so far as the Agents are informed, was to have left Marseilles on the 23rd of last month, and should arrive here somewhere r about the beginning of the new year. It may perhaps be interesting to know • that nearly all the steamers have been, and are being, expressly built for the Australian service, and with a due regard to all the points conducive to the comfort of those who may travel by then. Their average speed will be quite equal to that of other first-class (teamen. The contract, as it stands between the Company and the French Government, is for a subsidised service extending over fifteen years from the date of its commencement, and this must necessarily, from the certainty of its continuance, prove a most important advantage to these Colonies in developing direct relations with the various countries of the European Continent. The route the steamers Will take, with Marseilles i ? or their starting points, will be by way of Port Baid, Suet, Aden, Mahe (Seychelles Islands), Reunion, Mauritius, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, terminating at Noumea : but ultimately it is expected that a branch steamer of smaller tonnage will connect eftber Melbourne or Sydney, moat probfl bly at the former point.