The Evening Star. TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1871.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 480, 25 July 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star.

TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1871.

" For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do."

In an article in yesterday's JSlorning News a characteristic effort is made to defend the Fijian trans-Pacific mail line as against that via Auckland. Our contemporary, with tite usual hatred of anything Vogelian, however much it may be beneficial to Auckland (iufact, we think, inning more, the more bene-' ficial to Auckland it may appear), has theimpeilinence to attempt to compare the boatu of the Fijian line with those on the Auckland line, and insinuates that the slow-goiugs of the Wonga Wonga and the City of Melbourne are exaggerated. As this article,

which is disguised as a letter, is dictated by malice against our trans-Pacific mail service, it is right that we should really place the doings of f.lie two lines side by side for comparison. Our contemporary, of the former trips of Hall's mail service, says, " Whenever Hall's boats were over their due time it was always shown here that instead of the connecting boat—Moses Taylor—being detained at Honolulu, it was Hall's; boats that were always detained." Our contemporary, of course, means the contrary of what he saya. But it is a notorious fact that the fault of detention was almost invariably with Hall's boats, which were nearly always behind their time. Since the new contract has been entered upon, we are enabled to compare not only the doings of the Nebraska and Nevada with those of the Wonga and City of Melbourne when on the same route, but the relative advantages of the two routes in the matter of speedy transit. So far as Mr. Webb's boats have run yet, each voyage between Auckland and Honolulu has occupied fifteen days, with the exception of the last voyage, which occupied sixteen days. For the sake of comparison, by doubling this, and adding a day for coaling, we have the trips from Auckland to Honolulu, and return by Mr. Webb's boat, represented .by thirtyone days. In another column we publish the trips of the Wonga and City of Melbourne, from which we find the average of thirteen trips to have occupied, thirty-eight days. The simple statement of such a fact should suggest silence on the subject to our contemporary.

But a comparison of the two existing services, founded on the results of. what may be regarded as their trial trips, is more instructive" still. The City of Melbourne was thirty-four days in reaching San Francisco from Sydney ; the Nebraska was twentyeight -days and six hours in reaching Sydney from San Francisco, or nearly six daym less than the corresponding trip of the opposition service. The unfinished trips of (Ik •Wonga and Nevada present a similai comparison; for,- by allowing the sani( time to the "Wonga for completing the trip from Honolulu to Sail Francisco, viz., eleven days. a« that required by the City of Melbourne, and by allowing the same time to the Nevada for completing the trip from Auckland to Sydney, viz., four and a halt" days, at that required by the Nebraska, we have 36 days' voyage for the Wonga between Sydney and Ban Francisco, as against 29 clays' voyage for the Nevada between S&a Francisco and Sydney.

Compare the performances of the boats, or compare the results of the services by the two routes as we may, the result is still the same, and shows the great superiority of the service which the spirited enterprise of the Government has secured to New Zealand. The vicious disposition of our untruthful little contemporary prompts statements that we feel bound to expose. And in these attempts to malign the service we have only further evidence of the lengths to which spite and disappointment will drive those whose minds are not guided by strict adherence to truth.