THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY. MARCH 5, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1124, 5 March 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY. MARCH 5, 1872.

The San Francisco mail steamer has been compelled, for this one month, to make the trip to New Zealand with scarcely any cargo or passengers, and without the East American or European mails. The difficulties which were experienced in the month of December on some of the more elevated parts of the railway line, have been aggravated as the winter season advanced. Snow storms of exceptional severity have prevailed to a very low line of latitude, and, notwithstanding the ingenuity of American engineers, the sequence has been the stoppage of railway communication, and the experience of some suffering by snow-blocked travellers by the plains. The present railway line across the continent is thus proved to be no freer from objections, at certain seasons, than the Suez or Panama route, and already the inventive genius of the Americans is directing itself to the opening of a railway lino still farther to the south, but the obstacles to traffic are not so paramount or likely be so prolonged as to justify a condemnation of tho San Francisco line as one of the routes by which our mail communication should be maintained. The inconvenience, even for this one mouth, will, no doubt, be considerably I felt throughout the Colony, but the commercial records of the past few months exhibited in n very marked degree how important the Sau Francisco service was becoming to the Colouy, and how much it was being appreciated, and isafcill likely to be appreciated, by the trading community. | By thn more news-reader the inconvenience for this month is not of very Rerious moment. Though railway traffic is interrupted, telegraphic communication seems to have been maintained, and the electric wire seems to have been at work in tho transmission of news compared with which the intelligence of the past few months, interesting as it was, was by no means of superior importance. Instead of bulletins regarding the health of the Prince of Wales, who, by the way, was sufficiently recovered to be able to appear at church, and to contemplate an early Mediterranean cruise, the telegraphists have been busy transmitting report upon report, and comment upon comment, re--garding the position of affairs between England and America in connection with the long-vexed question of the Alabama claims. It. is not unusual for us to be surfeited by the San Francisco newsvendors with news of essentially American interest, and with such news bearing a decidedly American complexion, and, acting merely upon the experience of the past, we are fairly justified in partaking of the pabulum with which they now serve us, cum grano sails. Even so, however, th# news by this mail must be admitted, upon the face of it, to be of more importance, and to be also of a more reliable character, than is usually furnished to us by way of San Francisco. Greater prominence is, no doubt, given to the international difficulty than would be in the summaries of intelligence by Suez, but the numerous quotations from the English Press, and from European reports of the Geneva arbitration, shor that in England the difficulty which Im3 arisen is not contemplated with indifference. It was only lately jthat congratulations were being made on both sides as to the completion of the Washington Treaty. Honeyed phrases were freely used by public speakers on both sides of the Atlantic, and everything seemed to be tending to a satisfactory solution of a long existing dispute, Any opening of the arbitration by extraordinary demands on the part of America must naturally, under the circumstances, have lod to marked resentment, but it is hard to suppose, alter such pacific preliminaries, that the two countries would very readily drift iuto violent antagonism. On the one side there may be strong political considerations—considerations associated with the internal politics of the countryw-promnt-I ing ft President to play, at this particular time, what might provo a popular card with a section of the American people. But in Eugland the spirit of the people is i very far from encouraging a prolongation of the Alabama dispute, and still farther from making it a cause of war; and there is nothing in the version of the Queen* Speech which wo have received which i indicates aiiy doubt aa to the disposition aud tlw hopes of the Govern*

ment being in the direction of peace. Let us hope that this is really as it appears, and that the description given in this American summary of the month's intelligence^ 'is a description only of a very temporary feature of an arbitration which was otherwise auspicionuly opened. Except in this connection, the news from the Continent of Europe is not remarkablo for many incidents of marked interest. Tho Catholic agitation in Germany and some Republican organisation in Franco are referred to as exciting some attention, as in England Republicanism and Home Rule for Irelaud hold their placo as political questions of the day, but the Queen is able to congratulate her subjects upon the prevalence of peace abroad, and there have been no domestic demonstrations of auy extraordinary significance. No Home summary would be complete at the present time without a reference to the Tichborne case, and the mere mention of the examiuation of three hundred witness for the defence will suggest to the jaded readers of the case that it is not altogether an unmixed evil that tho news we receive this month is i received only by telegraph.