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Dunstan Times, Issue 851, 9 August 1878, Page 2

According to all accounts the weather in tho neighbourhood of Lawrence and throughout tho country in that direction has been unprecedentedly severe, the snow fall being greater (than on any previous occasion during tho past sixteen years. From what we Lave experienced rn this proverbially beautiful climate, having had snow ;in our streets for days together, we can believe anything that is said, and we deeply sympathise with those who have suffered, yet at the sam? time we cannot see why the whole country between Lawrence and Queenstown should be without a mail for four or live days. Tho mail contracts, from the way they are carried out, look as if everything depended on the mail from the Dunedin terminus, and that the intermediate mails are of but little or no importance. Of necessity the Dunedin mail is tho heaviest, but it by no means contains always the most important letters. We must come to one of two conclusions, that it is another instance of the neglect which is invariably accorded tho interior, or it is the snpineness of the postal authorities. Whichever it is a change is necessary. It is not generally known, hut such is tho case, that for some time the Australian letters for the district have been received via Queenstown and the Bluff, and as no coach reaches ns from that end wo may possibly be kept out of these because the Dunedin end of the line is blocked. Some, we are aware, throw the whole blame on the contractors. We do not sec tho justice of this, the fault lies with the department, and the officers in it alone should be held responsible ; they had an uninterrupted lino of telegraph at their hands through which they could have issued their orders as intelligibly as if on the spot. From our experience tho whole system of up-country mail contracts require re-model-ling, and it would he well if, during the present session, some of the members acquainted with its working were to ask for a commission to examine and report. Such a commission would be of infinite benefit, and tho result could not be other thau a boon and a blessing.