The Invercargill Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1862.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 3, 18 November 1862, Page 2

The Invercargill Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1862.

" The people of luvercargill," so says the Southland News, "are a<ked by certain optimists recently arrived from Otago, to believe that that Province entertains not the slightest feeling of jealousy towards Southland." We are justified by the context in supposing that weave the "Optimists" alluded to, although the meaning we have hitherto attached to that word scarcely warrants its use iv the present instance. Taking it for granted, then, that we are the aforesaid Optimists, we congratulate the Southland Neivs on. the discovery of a fact which is not borne out by oue single word that has. appeared in the luvercargill Times, and we arc constrained to believe either that our contemporary's capacity is of a more limited extent than we should wish to give him credit for, or that he has wilfully stult'fied himself as to our meaning. The Provinces of Otago and Southland may, if it suits their convenience, emulate the example of the Kilkenny eats, but we deprecate the importing of their quarrels into the present question, and desire to discuss it on its merits, without alluding to what does not directly bear on the subject. We plead guilty to the charge of repeating ourselves to a certain extent, but tne great importance of the subject, and the misconstruction put upon our remarks must be our excuse.

lv considering the desirability of establishing direct steam communication with Melbourne, it is necessary to inquire whether a local company would at present be in a position to purchase such a class of steamers as would warrant the Government in entrusting the mail service to them; this is one part of the question, and, acknowledging, as every one must, the vast boon which would be conferred on the community by having their mail service certainly and rapidly carried on, in lieu of the present unsatisfactory method, it is natural to inquire — if not by a local company, how else is it to be effected. The Southland News says that we [The TimevS,] " have asked the people of Invercargill to believe that Otago has of late undergone such an entire change in her disposition that she wouid actually be disposed to allow her steam mail contractors to accept the small subsidy of £4,000 pelannum from Southland as a modest payment for the iuestimable boon of the mail steamer calling at the Bluff." The statement that we did so is simply false, nor could such an inference be logically deduced from what we said. The firm which at present has the contract for carrying the mails between Otao-o and Melbourne are bound to do their work in a certain time, and if they comply with the conditions of their contract, the Province of Otago would have nothing to say to them if they sent their steamers to Jerusalem. But ridicule is thrown on the whole scheme of calling at the Bluff, in a paragraph in which the letting off of steam, Spanish dances, and the mail bags, are all jumbled up together; while further on, as if the writer were afraid he had ventured too far, we are told that intelligent men in Duncdiu made a similar offer to the Superintendent,

and that it was rejected by His Honor, not because 'it was impracticable and absurd, but because he considered, and perhaps justly, that the consideration was out of proportion to the service to be rendered. But, Oh! People of Southland, you must not have the benefit of the steamers calling at the Bluff, because the Otago press objects ! The Colonist has lifted up its mighty voice against you. That bright luminary [we shall quote again from the Southland Nncs] '•attributes the fact of three Otago mails for England having reached Melbourne too late for the outward bound mail steamers, to the General Government having interefered with the former very complete Provincial arrangements, and insisted upon the contract steamers callingatthe Bluff for the Southern ' bags."' That is, indeed, a " clincher" to an argument which certainly requires a good deal of proping up, and on reading it for the first time we should have at ojee collapsed, had not our contemporary himself bid us be of good cheer, by assuring us, with the next stroke of his pen, that ii was all a mistake — that the loss of those three mails was not caused by calling at the Bluff; that the Aldinga kuocked a hole in her bottom off the coast of Otago, and found shelter in the Bluff; that the City of Hobart would have been in time but for a culpable neglect of her signals by the Captain of the Madras, — io short, that the very arguments lie had used himself but one moment before were utterly worthless, and that the facts of the Colonist were not worth the paper they were written on. What does the whole of the article we have been quoting from prove ? To what extent has the Southland JSeios strengthened its position ? The article has proved nothiug, and the position taken by the A'eivs is strengthened in no one point. There are a fine line of steamers engaged Li the mail service, aud every man in Southland should do his utmost in endeavoring that this Province should get a fair share of their sei vices, no matter if every joiu--nal in the colony opposed it. That, then, is the alternative which we propose to the people of Southland, not in lieu of direct steam communication with Australia by means of firstclass boats, but instead of the risk to the mails attendant upon their being conveyed in a class of vessel of which we may take the "Lady Bird" to be a sample. If the men and money are forthcoming in Southland to start an efficient line of steamers, by all means iet them be subsidised; but. until that is the case, should a reasonable tender be made for the present or any other line of good boats to drop and take up the- mail bags at the Bluff, let not the opportunity be neglected, no matter whether Otago objects or not. We had hoped that the pen that first proposed the plan would have given some further information as to the amount of " passenger and goods traffic" that a steamer running direct between Invereargill aud Melbourne would be likely to comcoaud, but a very fair estimate may easily be made by reference to the Custom-house, and should it appear that she could be easily filled, a boat of less power and space than would be necessary for the Australian mail service, and which could come into the New River, although not up to the jetty, would, of course, do much to reduce the present rate ct' freight.