Wellington Independent SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3157, 25 March 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1871.

The contract printed elsewhere between the Hon. Mr Yogel and Messrs Webb and Holladay will set at rest many enquiries. We fully recognise the right of the public to be informed as soon as possible of all contracts in which the good faith of the colony is pledged. As we explained on Wednesday, the publication was only delayed to admit, of the contract having been first perused by the members of the Government now in Dunedin. By a telegram received yesterday we understand that they have sent it to the " Times" for publication, and we are indebted to the hon. the Premier for the use of his copy for pub lication. It will be seen that it is (as we said) almost identical with the Neilson contract, and thai where there is any difference it is more favorable to New Zealand, The sum is reduced from £00,000 to £50,000, the subsidy from Melbourne in the event of its participating in the benefit being at least £25,000, to be divided equally between the Government and the contractors For the first year the contractors may cause the vessel arriving at Auckland from San Francisco to be run from Auckland to Sydney and Melbourne. If the contractors put on this connecting vessel, then the mnil will be transhipped at Auckland and sent on by a vessel of the same class to Wellington, Lyttelton, and Port Chalmers, and this vessel starting from Port Chalmers will make the succeeding voyage to San Francisco, calling on the way at Lyttelton, Wellington, and Auckland. After the first year, the contractors will not have it in their power to send the vessel arriving at Auckland from San Francisco oftener than twice a year to Sydney or Melbourne, the vessel from San Fran cisco proceeding straight on to Port Chalmers and calling at the intermediate ports. It will be noticed also that no mails whatever to or from any of the colonies of Australia, or to or from New Caledonia, shall be received on board or carried in any of the steam vessels employed under this contract, without the written consent of the Post-master-General, and the forfeit for every breach of thisstipulationis fixed at £500. But at the same time the PostmasterGeneral is empowered to make any ar-

rangements he may think fit with any of the Australian Governments and New Caledonia, the sum payable by them being equally divided between the Government of New Zealand and the contractors. It is further provided that if connection is not made by a vessel from Auckland to Sydney or to Sydney and Melbourne within four months from the commencement of the contract, then the New Zealand Government will only pay forty instead of fifty thousand for the service. One noticeable feature in the contract is that the Australian colonies will be secured a fortnightly mail service with England, and their main objection to an American service is thereby removed. The report first published in an extra of the " Southern Cross," and telegraphed throughout the colony, that the general impression in San Francisco was that Mr Webb's steamers, would not start is shown to be absurd — Mr Webb binding himself under a penalty of £25,000 to commence and continue the service It will be observed that in all important, and in many unimportant particulars, the contract is the same as the " No. 2 line" in the arrangements made with Mr Neilson. The ships are the same, the same clauses are inserted as to speed, penalties, &c, as are also those with reference to the admission of wool, flax, &c, into the United States. The great points of difference are that it is definite — leaving no option of other forms of mail service, and that it will cost the colony at least £10,000 per annum less. It will thus be seen that the contract carries out the resolution of the Assembly in all respects, and promises to be the cheapest, as it is sure to be the most efficient postal service, we have yet enjoyed. We understand that the Hon. Mr Yogel has forwarded to his colleagues a letter detailing the reasons for many of the principal clauses of the contract which when transmitted from Dunedin, whither (with the contract) it was sent for perusal by the Hon. Messrs Gisborne and Bell, will be priuted in our columns. Meanwhile the colony may be congratulated on the remarkable success of their " representative with the greatest steamship owners in America," and instead of being " ashamed" as Mr E. J. Wakefield feels from his lofty pinnacle of " hereditary family and personal association with the colony for thirty-five years," New Zealand has just cause to feel gratified that the connection between it and America has been so favorably secured by the Postmaster-General, whose distinguished reception by the people of America is at once a proper tribute to his personal fitness for the important mission with which he has been entrusted, and a graceful expression of the kindly interest he has been mainly instrumental in creating between the older colonists of America and their younger brethren of New Zealand. Such offensive remarks as disgrace Mr Wakefield's letter which we have referred to, are not worthy of any reply. We would only remind him in the words of the epigramatist non tinicuigue datum est Jiauere nasum.