POSTAL MATTERS IN SOUTH CANTERBURY.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 224, 26 February 1875, Page 3

POSTAL MATTERS IN SOUTH CANTERBURY.

At a public meeting held in Timaru on Wednesday evening the following petition to the Government was adopted :- " To the Honorable William Reynolds, " Postmaster-General of New Zealand. " The petition of the inhabitants of Timaru and the surrounding districts respectfully showeth: "Thatwe, the inhabitants of Timaru and the surrounding districts, desire to lay before you the following facts. The town of Timaru comprises now not less than two thousand people ; the district of South Canterbury not less than two thousand. The inhabitants of this area are every month deprived of the advantages of receiving their European mails as soon as possible after their arrival in this colony, through their district lying intermediately between Port Chalmers and Port Lyttelton. On the occasion of the arrival of the last Suez mail, the mail steamer arrived at Port Chalmers on a Tuesday, the 16th February. She left the same evening for Timaru, where she arrived the following morning, Wednesday, the 17th. She did not bring the European mails for this district, although the Mayor of Timaru, at the request of the inhabitants, had urged you, sir, to give instructions for our mails to be placed on board, and you had replied that our request had been anticipated. Our mails remained at Port Chalmers until the Beautiful Star sailed on Thursday, the 11th February, so that we did not receive our mails until late on Friday the 19th, in the town of Timaru, or until Monday the 22nd, or Tuesday the 23rd in the country districts. The mail steamer Albion lay at anchor at Timaru for twelve hours on Wednesday, but yet the inhabitants of Wellington, two dayß'

journey to the north of as, received their mails before we received ours. "We would respectfully submit that we are entitled to have some effective arrangement made by which our European mails via Suez shall be forwarded to us by the first opportunity after their arrival in the colony. The existing means of communication between Dunedin and Timaru at present are:— "1. Overland by coach via Oamaru three times a week, leaving Dunedin for Oamaru daily, and Oamaru for Timaru on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. " 2. By coasting steamer, leaving Dunedin about twice a week, at the convenience or option of owners. "3. Occasionally by the mail steamer calling at Timaru in search of freights, within her contract time whilst en route for Lyttelton.

"Of these three, we would respectfully submit that as a general rule the overland route is the most regular, and therefore the most desirable ; but we would venture to suggest that on the arrival of the European mail at Dunedin, on a day when the overland mail for Timaru was started, if a coastal or any othersteamer be about to sail, our mails be placed on board of her. " While respectfully attracting your attention to the disadvantages under which we have hitherto suffered in these respects, we desire very urgently to impress upon you the desirability of establishing daily communication between Timaru and Oamaru. In the month of June (?) last, we were indebted to your favorable consideration of our claims, for the establishment of daily postal communication between Timaru and Christchurch, which has proved of great benefit to the district. There has long been double daily communication between Oamaru and Dunedin. There remains therefore, only the intervening space between Timaru and Oamaru, to render complete the most important line of overland postal communication in the colony. The districts of Pareora, Otaio, Waimate, and Waitaki, lying on this route are no longer wildernesses; they are populous, prosperous, and rapidly progressing. The establishment of this daily commnnication between Timaru and Oamaru would remove at once all difficulty with respect to the postage of our Suez mails, and would confer a boon upon the inhabitants of a vast agricultural and pastoral district, out of all proportion to the trifling additional expense which it would cause."