Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 102, 30 March 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1863.

In our issue of the 28th inst., we observed that the Mail, which was intended to go by the Storm Bird was, from some uot-at-pre-sent-explained cause, not sent.

This ought not to he. We congratulate ourselves as a community on the efficiency of our Mail Service, and we also pay highly for the privilege we thus enjoy, and it is, therefore, hut fair that, having such good cause to admire and to pay, we should be entitled to the full benefit of our appliances and our cash. But it would seem from the case to which we refer, that there is yet a something wanting to complete our satisfaction ; for if, when a vessel is ready to take the mail, and the mail is ready to go to the vessel, the two do not succeed in effecting a juncture—there must necessarily he some link wanting to complete the chain of unity, and thus bring about that happy concurrence of circumstances which will enable us without let hindrance to derive all the advantages of a speedy and uninterrupted communication with the other parts of the inhabited globe. We are not desirous of laying the blame of this accidental stoppage of the mails in the particular instance referred to, upon the shoulders of any individual, but we are, nevertheless most anxious to draw the attention of the authorities to the fact that a system which will admit of such a blunder being made, must be somewhere or somehow radically wrong. The Post Office, when under the immediate control and supervision of our old and esteemed Postmaster, was certainly one which, although fighting against great odds as to accommodation and general internal economy and arrangement, was yet one which could bravely claim its own in comparisen with any other branch of the same widely-spread and perfectly organized system, and which system is remarkable for the many facilities which it affords for keeping up a correspondence and communication with any part of the earth reacha hie by means of steam and electricity—of course excepting over the Bay—the interior of the Province of Hawke’s Bay, which does not at present claim to come within these two tremendous and equalizing influences. Why we should have to complain of any irregularity in the service of a mail, which is more highly paid and has more extensive influence and control over the immediate interests of the mercantile and other classes than is readily explained or conceivable at a glance, appears to us to be a query which is more easily asked than answered. Life is short, and Time is proportionately precious, therefore we look upon any interruption or interference with our means of making the most of it, as a direct attack upon our vital principles, and resent that attack accordingly. In these days of Steam Navigation, and the unlimited intercourse carried on between one nation and another by that means, nothing can reflect greater discredit upon any one nation or people in particular, than an insufficient or defective Postal or Mail Service. In discussing the merits of the present system pursued by the Post Office authorities in regard to the mail delivery in the interior of the Province, we had occasion to remark that that system was admirable* and the more so when we take into consideration the many difficulties which have to be overcome, and the small means at disposal for overcoming these difficulties ; we then did not forget to animadvert upon the present defective arrangement, by which the mails* when delivered from a vessel arriving in Port, are kept in the Head Post Office for an entire day, and ax-e consequently not received in the Branch Post Office until that period

of precious time has been allowed thus to evaporate and expire. Some steps ought at once to be taken to remedy this great defect.

We quite agree with our -contemporary over the way that the Provincial Government ought to institute a searching enquiry into the present defective state of i the Post Office arrangements, and, if found necessary, stop without further parley the usual monthly subsidy.