The Evening Star. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1870.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 188, 16 August 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1870.

The final solution of the question relating to the settlement of the port of call on the San Francisco mail route is approaching. On this side of the Pacific.it may be regarded as settled, so far as the claims of Auckland and "Wellington are concerned; and the

mail has just brouglit tidings from America showing ihat on the east side of the Pacific calm consideration of a distant controversy has induced a verypronounced public conviction on the question. The mission of Mr. Collie to the colonies has been productive of much good, and, had he executed that mission in a different way, and without such antagonism towards our northern city, we should not now have so satisfactory assurances of the alliance of Sydney and Brisbane, and the total indifference of Melbourne on the subject. We can have no hesitation now in seeing that if the fixing of the port of call is to be dependent on the wishes of the colonies which are likely to join in subsidies, and to use the TransPacific mail route, the consideration of Wellington must be waived, and although this is the principle of guidance in selection as expressed in the bill pending in the American Congress, and is generally accepted as just by the American people, yet the people of California cannot help prejudging the case, a" d giving significant hints. Geography is so wholly on the side of Auckland, that the Xews of the World thus expresses Californian views :—" At the same time, we are bound to say that unless New Zealand and Victoria pay the whole of the subsidy, it would be absurd that the through steamers from here would go away south aa far as Cook's Straits. To do that would be to avoid New South Wales and Queensland altogether, and to make the passage to Melbourne longer and exceedingly unpleasant, for the rough weather experienced on the New Zealand coast when a latitude so far south as Wellington is reached, is well known." But a new claim is coming prominently to the front; and, as we stated from the first, our controversy is not with Wellington but with 3?iji. As geography fights for ' Auckland against Wellington, so can no one deny that the proper route in the interest of all the Australian colonies is via Fiji. But what result this inevitable place of call will have on the interests of this city, and of New Zealand, will be dependen! on the nse made of our opportunities. The American journal ridicules the objections of New Zealand to a branch line connecting with Fiji, and affects to regard the matter as but a difference in name. Bub there is a very wide distinction between our travellers and trade connecting themselves with a trunk line, subject to all the contingencies of crowded boats and irregular sailing, and their leaving our coasts ?n the steamers that will land them in San Francisco. And as the continental colonies have their Suez and Torres' Straits and Cape routes to fall back upon, and we have only our single Pacific route of any practical advantage, it is earnestly to be hoped that no consideration will ever induce our Grovernment and Legislature to be parties to any arrangement that will remove New Zealand from the trunk line. If a branch Hue connect Fiji, let it be with Australia; but as a matter of vital interest to the commercial prosperity of New Zealand we must insist at any cost, that the through mail-boats come to New Zealand. That Fiji will be in the trans-Pacific route is as certain as that the shortest line between two points is a straight line; and from the vantage ground we now hold in possession of the route, it is ours to foresee the coming of the inevitable, and bend it to our interests.