THE NEW MAIL SERVICE.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2389, 28 November 1870, Page 3

THE NEW MAIL SERVICE.

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. The following by favor of the General Government is published for general information:— The Postmaster-General records with much gratification that, after considerable difficulty and protracted negociation, he has succeeded in arranging the terms of a new contract for a mail service between New Zealand and San Francisco with Mr W. Neilson, the confidential representative of the North Pacific Transportation Company (Messrs Holiday and Brenhara, San Francisco), between which Company and Mr Webb of New York there has been an amalgamation of interests and an arrangement entered into by which Mr Webb’s ships are to perform the service. The following is an outline of the arrangement entered into : —The contractors are to establish a line of mail steamers under the style and title of “ The United States, New Zealand, and Australian Line.” The steamers to be employed are the Nevada, the Nebraska, and the Dacotah, with the proviso that the Moses Taylor may be temporarily used in the event of accident to anyone of the three vessels named; and" further, that should any of the three vessels bdfcome unserviceable others are to be substituted, to be approved of by the Postmaster-General. The contract vessels are to be in every respect first-class mail and passenger steamers, and to be maintained as such. The contract is to be for ten years, subject to the condition that within six months from the arrival of the first boat at Wellington (say about the beginning of September), the Assembly may decide that the duration of the contract shall bo for three years only. But the Government are to use their best endeavors to secure that the ten years be the period to be accepted by the Assembly. The service first commenced is to be a temporary one, and in the contract it is described as “ Line No. 1.” Three alternative lines are provided for, one of which will have to be finally adopted under conditions set forth in the contract, and which the Postmaster-Gene-ral proposes now to indicate. To all the four lines one feature is common : that the main boat runs from San Francisco to Port Chalmers, calling at Auckland, Wellington, and Lyttelton. Line No. I.—A steamer to leave San Francisco once in every calendar month, commencing on the 16th of February next, and to proceed to Port Chalmers, calling at Auckland, Wellington, and Lyttelton ; and to return from Port Chalmers to San Francisco once in every calendar month, calling at Lyttelton, Wellington, and Auckland. Between San Francisco and Auckland two ports may be visited. (To be continued.)