The Mail Terminus.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 95, 5 September 1871, Page 6

The Mail Terminus.

The following is portion of a leading; article | in the "Mount Ida Chronicle of Friday last, i in reference to the terminus of the Northj Western Mails being transferred from Clyde j to Cromwell : In another column will bo found a moi morial from the Mayor and Town Council of j Cromwell to the Postmaster-General, relative jto making that place the terminus of the | north-western mail service instead of Clyde, jas at present. We have so often and so I strongly expressed our opinion on this sub ject, that we feel some hesitation in returnTing to it, nor, indeed, should we have done !so on the present occasion were it not for [the receipt of the memorial to which we | have above alluded. In our opinion the j prayer of the Cromwell memorial is fair and ! just, and the request made is a very simple and | reasonable one. We do not, in any degree, j desire to disparage Clyde, or to detract from j ibs importance as an inland centre. Still, it | must be born in mind that during the last I session of the Provincial Council a Commission, specially appointed to enquire into Goldftelds matters, decided unanimously that Cromwell was the place—the most cent.*'. the most important in the Du r, .?.'".vi cYtsirict, and the place wherein slioruu be located the Executive machinery of th/j district. Under these circumstances we Cannot but think, to use the words of the Memorial, that Cromwell is the "natural tinininas of the North-Wes-tern Mails," an-i w<: think also that every effort should > - ase d so to mike it. The present arrn,;<£emcnt is eminently unsatisfactory, flm w«-- n j; mail terminus being only some i thirteen miles off what the. . Cromwellites j designate—and, we think, designate With ; truth—the natural terminus for that por- ! tion of the inland mails. Let us, however, j attempt to arrive at something like facts. | The distance from Duaedin to Cromwell is set down at 170 miles. Now, let us see how j this distance is divided in a mail point of ■ view. The coach from Dimedin reaches I Pigroot the first night, a distance of some seventy miles ; the following dav Clyde is reached, a distance of something like ninety odd miles. At Clyde the service terminates, and Cromwell, the principal inland capital, is reached the third day by a branch mail. While agreeing with the remarks contained in the memorial, that an alteration in the hour of departure from Dnnedin would do much to effect a cure oE the present mail disease, we doubt if the expression'" without extra expense" will be found to be correct. Nor do we, indeed, believe—much as we desire to see it accomplished—that the proposed service can be in any way satisfactorily carried out unless that abomination, the Houndburn Hill, i 3 avoided by the making of a new road through what is generally known to bo the gorge. That this can ba done has been frequently demonstrated by survey, which has shown that, should a new road he. made, commencing at the old fluming of the Shag River Company, the distance between Pigroot and Nasoby would be shortened by some six or eight miles, and a good road substituted for a bad one, thereby making the distance saved actually and virtually much greater.