AUSTRALASIAN TELEGRAPH AND POSTAL CONVENTION.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1375, 12 July 1878, Page 3

AUSTRALASIAN TELEGRAPH AND POSTAL CONVENTION.

[BY TELEGRAPH. PEE PRESS AGENCY.J WELLINGTON, July 11.

Messrs Burns and Fisher to-day agreed to and signed a minute respecting postal and telegraph matters. The New Zealand Government will join Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia in the duplication of the cable to Singapore. The arrangement is for a reduction of the charges ol'the Eastern Extension Company for transmission of messages between Port Darwin and London, by 75 per cent, on press messages and 55 per cent, on Government. Such arrangement is held by the Governments to be liberal, and the above reduction may, in the discretion of Messrs Berry or Burns, be modified to the extent proposed by the company, if it cannot obtain a similar reduction for its use of the Dutch end Indian lines. The keeping of a steamer constantly in a port of Australia or New Zealand —for the New Zealand cable is held to be an unnecessary expense, from which the company should be relieved, while, at the same time, it is to bo held liable for keeping up cable communication between the two colonies. The company has agreed to reduce its charges for transmission of all messages by the New Zealand cable; but what the reduction is has not been made public, and is embodied in in a separate agreement between Messrs Burns, Fisher and Colonel Glover. The re-( pairing ship of the company is to be at all times available for the repair of Cook Straits cables, the New Zealand Government to defray the expense thereof, indemnifying the company for any damage to the steamer or machinery. As regards postal communications, the Agents-General of New South Wales and New Zealand are to move the Secretary of State for the Colonies to cause the subsidy, granted by the Imperial Government under the present treaty towards the Pacific and Torres Straits mail services, to be continued for a further period. (The present treaty between England and the colonies respecting mail services expires this year.) The Agents-General are also to request the contractors for the Pacific mail service to propose another surety in the room of Mr McGregor- New South Wales and New Zealand are to join the Berne Postal Union, with the object of establishing uniform postal regulations of universal application, provided that no reduction is made in the rate of postages for ocean services, and that the cost of transit of mails between San Francisco and Now York or Boston is not charged to the colonies, and that the laws of the colonies respecting wholly unpaid correspondence are not interfered with.