THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 57, 5 August 1874, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

[From the " Home News."] The Australian and New Zealand Mail, via San Francisco, has hardly got into working order yet. The April homeward mail is not yet to hand, and the outward May mail was fully four days late in sailing from San Francisco. When it is remembered that the Atlas, carrying that mail, was twelve and a half days on the passage, this can hardly be wondered at. The Baltic, sailing on the same day, aved two da\s on the same passage. With such differences as these constantly arising, the desirability of themails being forwarded from home by the very be«t ships and routes is mauifest. That this is not always done some circumstances that have lately aiisen sufliciently indicate. Some time ago New York was substituted for Boston as the point of arrival on the American side. This was advantageous in many respects. First of all, there is a positive saving of time in any case ; and secondly, the quickest boats are almost invariably sent to New York. Upon the approaching departure of the last mail, that of June the sth, it was advertised that the old route via Boston would be resumed. Thereupon Messrs Lawrance, Clark, and Co, the agents for the contractors here, with a zeal that does them all credit, placed themselvesin communication with the Post Office authorities, calling attention to the fact that the alteration would " almost to a certainty cause delay in the transmission of the mails, loss to the contractors, and disappointment to the public." The agents also wrote to the Agent-General for New South Wales, drawing attention to the proposed change and asking " whether it was not contrary to the arrangements with the Post Office." The Post Office replied to the effect tliat any observations on the subject of the mails should be made to the agents general and not to that department. The same letUr also intimated that in despatching the mails to Boston, the

Ounard Company in no way departed from the stipulations of their contract. The reply from the Agent - General for New South Wales was even less satisfactory. It read as follows, and was signed by "A. A. Jopp, Captain R.E." "In reply to your memorandum of to-day, Sir Charles Cowper desires me to say that he is not aware that the sailing of to-morrow's Cunard steamer for Boston is in any way contrary to arrangements made with the Post office. The steamers at first went to Boston, latterly they have gone to New York; and they will probably go to New York again some months hence. But in any case the intended port of arrival in America is duly notified by Messrs Cunard to the Post office authorities, and as long as this is done, it does no! appear to Sir Charles, as far as he knows of the nature of the arrangement made, that any complication is likely to arise, the more so as the difference in the time of the two passages is so very slight." By what process of reasoning any delay in the dispatch and conveyance of the mails could be looked upon as " very slight," is simply incomprehensible to those colonists resident in England, and at all interested in the matter. Within the last few days Messrs Lawrance, Clark, and Co, have received an amount of encouragement from the Australian side they failed entirely to find here. The postmaster of New South Wales writes to them :—" Our San Francisco service has not made a very good beginning, the great length of time occupied in the delivery of the first mails by the Macgregor, and her unfortunate disaster at Kan d avail, have been very much against us. The City of Melbourne made a splendid run here from San Francisco ; she was only twenty-nine days going round by Auckland, and yet our mails were several days behind time, owing to our mails having been, I believe, sixteen or eighteen days from Liverpool to Boston, whilst the portion of the mail wnich left London the previous Saturday for New York, arrived eight days before that sent to Boston. If our mails are to continue via Boston, the Cunard Company should put on a fast boat to carry them ; if they will do so the time table must at once be changed. I shall be glad if you will, as agents for the contractors, use your influence and exertions to cause the expeditious delivery and conveyance of the mails." There is therefore a hope of some improvement being effected. The service requires all the'-j improvement possible, and no means should be left untried to effect that object. The contract cost quite enough money to prepare and draw to make it a perfect one, and should this not be the case, it should be altered at once.