The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1876.

Evening Star, Issue 4166, 4 July 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1876.

The General Assembly, amongst other subjects, will have to deal with the Californian mail service. The contract, was formally ratified last session, but the Ministry were instructed to negotiate with the view of getting the subsidy reduced to £40,000 a-year, being the sum originally agreed npon, and further, to leave the arrangements so to be made subject to the ratification of the Souse. It would be useless now to discuss the past failings of the service. They caused much soreness at the time ; but a contract has been concluded for a term of years, and steamers of a finer class than had before been seen in our waters have been built and sent out from England for the express purpose of fulfilling the obligations undertaken by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. The service is getting into working order; and things, having reached the worst, seem likely to mend in such a fashion that little cause of complaint will arise in the future. The intense annoyance occasioned by the irregularities of the steamers until recently waß natural and justifiable. Only an extreme emergency, which certainly had not occurred, could, for example, have excused the New Zealand mails being

carried on to Sydney, as they were in the Granada, but the Colony can afford to let bygones be bygones; and having carefully examined the correspondence which has been laid before the Assembly, we feel bound to admit that the contractors, although they entered into the undertaking with a certain want of appreciation of its magnitude, show cveiy mark of goud faith and desiro to iulti'i their engagements. It appears certain that the company has already lost hcavity bj' its contract, and there is, consequently, some anxiety as to the prospect of carrying it out successfully. The chief pressure which the contract puts upon the company is that it entails the junction of three steamers at Fiji each month; and the company, consequently, favors the abandonment of the Fiji route for that by way of the Sandwich Islands. It has just formally proposed that the route should be changed to Sydney, Bay of Islands, Honolulu, and San Francisco, but th.e offer which has been made by telegram does not state what reduction in the subsidy would follow from the alteration. The tenders originally sent in by the company included this as an alternative route, and £IO,OOO a year less of total subsidy was asked for such a service. Under this arrangement, the company would only have to employ one main baat, instead of two boats, as at present; and Sydney would become the sole terminus of the line in lieu of Sydney and Port Chalmers being co-ordinate termini; while, moreover, the New Zealand coastal service would vanish. It is clear, therefore, that the greater part, if not the whole of any saving of subsidy which might thus be effected, ought to go into the pockets of this Colony, since it would not only lose the benefit of a terminus and be reduced to the status of a mere calling place, but would also have to provide, at its own expense, for the conveyance of mails between the Bay of Islands and Port Chalmers, the cost of which is now defrayed by the contractors. It is this proposal which the Assembly will have to consider. Our own Government favors the Honolulu route, but the Government of New South Wales seems contented with things as they are ; and the former therefore suggests that if the latter is determined to insist upon the steamers calling at Fiji, the contract should be so far modified as to allow of the service between Fiji and Port Chalmers being performed by a branch boat of not less than 2,000 tons burthen, for which concession the subsidy payable by New Zealand should be reduced by £20,000 a year. We appi-ehend that while the contract may require modification the inhabitants of Otago and Canterbury will not rest satisfied if they are shut out from the commercial advantages of the Californian service. It is highly desirable to have a duplex mail service, and when the Californian steamers have established a reputation for punctuality, the American route willl doubtless become the popular one for postal purposes; but if New Zealand is to be merely a place at which these steamers are to call to drop and pick up letters, the Colony will soon learn to begrudge even the £15,000 per annum, which is said to be the net cost of the line to it. The expectation that a line of steam packets running regularly between the Colony and California would open up a new and extensive trade was among the principal attractions—if not the principal one—which caused ifif to enter into the project. These expectations, it is true, are still unfulfilled. The work is harder than it was deemed to be, but the concurrence of opinion among mercantile men, that it can be accomplished in course of time and by perseverance, should cause us not to be faint-hearted. It is to be observed that events are occurring in the United States which are likely to bring about, ere long, a reduction of the protective duty now imposed upon foreign wools in that country. The woollen manufacturers there are complaining bitterly that their business is falling off because they are unable to obtain Australian fine wools to mix with their own coarse growth. Protection is touching their own pockets, and the Colonies may hope to profit thereby. This barrier once broken down, a vast trade would enter; but there are ether commercial products beside wool which could be. interchanged between the Colonies and the United States. As Sir P. Cooper puts it, " The Colonies cannot have constant communication through a community of 40,000,000 without trade being promoted, especially when that community is allied to us by blood and bone, as well as by a common language."