AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND MAIL LINE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 106, 2 October 1874, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND MAIL LINE.

The San Francisco Post of August 13th says —To conclude from the announcement that the steamship Macgregor will sail for Honolulu, Kandavu, Auckland, and Sydney on Monday next, carrying H. B. M. mails that the troubles of the Australian line have happily terminated, would be far from correct. The affairs are as much mixed as ever, but there is still reason to hope that all the difficulties will be adjusted in time so as to place the service on a perfectly satisfactory footing. But meanwhile the management is just as bad as it can be, and it is utterly impossible for J. C. Merrill and Co, the agents here, to do anything to improve matters without incurring still further serious expenses. Already the company is indebted to them to the tune of about 20,000 dollars, and until they can see some way of recovering that large amount and being reimbursed for any future outlay they may make, they do not feel themselves justified in expending more money to prop the credit of the line. This is the reason why the overland railroad orders brought by the Macgregor passengers have been repudiated. The original understanding was that H. H. Hall, the managing director in Sydney, should make regular remittances to cover the cost of the railroad tickets. This he has failed to do, and the railroad companies, after acknowledging the orders brought by the passengers of the Cyphrenes, more than two months ago, decided to recognise no others until a more certain system of payment should have been adopted. No change having been made, they have held to this resolution, and the consequence has been that all subsequent orders issued on Hall’s responsibility have been repudiated, causing the Australian line to fall into great disgrace. Nor are there at the present time any positive grounds to believe that the service will be restored to the confidence of the public. Much a daring violation of money contracts as receiving payment for services which are never rendered cannot but operate in the most prejudicial manner against the success of any enterprise; still, active steps are being taken to amend matters as much as possible. Mr Hanks, of the firm of J. C. Merrill and Co, has been in London for some lime past endeavouring to effect such changes in the management of the line as will effectually prevent theodium of repudiation ever attaching to it again, and although hehasuotyet succeeded in accomplishing his object, he has received sufficient encouragement to persevere in his endeavors. Indeed, he confidently hopes to have everything pertaining to the working of the line put on a sure financial basis leaving England. Notwithstanding that H. H. Hail is a principal to the contract for the Australian Mail Service, an apparently web-founded report has reached this city that the Governments of New South Wales and New Zealand have in consequence of recent disclosures affecting the management of the line, and which are calculated to injure the credit of those colonies as contracting part'es, resolved to remove him from the position he has held as Managing Director, aud place the affairs of the line in more reputable hands. A dispatch has been received stating that Hall left Sydney in the steamship Mikado, which sailed on the Ist instant for this port. Whether he comes to pay up or otherwise arrange matters is not known. Sj far as the Australian line is concerned, his presence in the city as having no further connection with it will prove most advantageous It is expected that the English mail for Australia will arrive b re in time to permit of the Macgregor sailing on Monday next. Letters and newspapers posted in the United States will be forwarded as usual, the postal arrangements between the respective countries remaining unchanged.