THE POSTAL CONFERENCE.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 15, 15 April 1867, Page 85

THE POSTAL CONFERENCE.

(Prom the Syduey Morning. Herald, March 30.) The, general reaulib of the Postal Con* ,fererice, and. the way in which that, result has been arrived at, have now. been l placed beforo our readers - It will assist still further -towards a right comprehension of the question;if we group together, some of the iigures which/illustrate the operation of tue present a¥d the proposed plan. ‘

'V'.!^e'tlo^^ißost'of'ffie , Suez route, as at present earned out, is £L75,567 Is. 6d. Of .this 4 amount, the larger proportion, or £131,434 Is. , ,6d.,,,is paid,, for., the service between Galle arid Sydney! This includes all incidental expeuces.for mail boxes, naval. agents, special, packets between jDoy eland Calais,_ and Egyptian .transit !rate. The sum ,of £16,439 is the joint oolonial contribution: to. the trunk;linb from .Southampton to Gahe. The intercolonial branch services' amount to . arid! artT d'iVided as follows

f'?Betweeifs>Riiig! CGeorge’s l4 Sound- 'and A /• ;V;>("£2475 -.- jmdi'NewZealaiidsfi 60.00- : .; ( ifßetweeatM€illi6iirnefaiid .Tasmania . 1850. ,

-Of-this amount the Home Government parav £^oo,--or a • little lesstban one-; fourth. / •/. / *. . The Panama service costs £IIO,OOO for the contract,''and 1 for the isthmus transit ratio, or £120,000 in all. The Torres. Straits route costs £45,000, towards which' .'Batavia will 'contribute £9,000. The total cost of. the three«sorvics as.-at present constituted is as-follows: —‘

Total... ... £340,567 1 6 Tn fixing the future cost, therefore, at £400,000, the Conference allowed a considerable margin, unless the branch services are to be inore expensive than at present. But the most expensive of these, viz., that between King George’s Sound and Port Adelaide, is to be abandoned, as the steamers are to call at Kangaroo Island- But there will have to be one between ’ Melbourne and Wellington, in connection with the Panama route, and arrangements’also for forwarding letters to and from Adelaide and Brisbane for the same route. But these latter will not be expensive, as the existing intercolonial steamers will do the work for a moderate bounty on -each mail trip. The Queenslarid Government has an offer of a definite amount for the Torres Straits route from the A.S.N. Comp my and the Netherlands India- Steam Navigation Company. The A.S.N.' Company has offered to do the service to Galle for less than the present subsidy. So that it is a matter of certainty that the limit of £409,000 cannot be exceeded, and will not even be reached. The cost of the present Suez line is distributed partly in proportion to distance, and partly in proportion to the number of letters’; This makes it come heavy 011 New Zealand, which is at the most remote point by that route, and has a large corres pondence in proportion to its population. The colonial distribution of the Suez subsidy, takeu by itself, is as follows: —

So:that New Zealand contributes to the Suez route not only more than New South Wales, but even more than Victoria, though it never gets the advantage of return of post. The cost ,:of the Torres Straits route is all Queensland, and .that of the Panama route by New South Wales and New Zealand. The contributions at present “to the three mail services are respectively as follows; £ s. d.

The total contribution of New Zealand at the present time to ocean postal purposes (exclusive of its subsidy for interprovincial purposes) is.very nearly £IOO,OOO, and is over £25,000 in excess of what the Home Government contributes. Tlie present contribution, of New South Wales is also in excess of what the Home Government contributes. When the . colonies, therefore, take ; the initiative, in taxing themselves at. this rate, it is not unfair of them to ask the Home Government to be a little more liberal, especially when we remember how freely money has been granted to maintain communication with the less im» portant colonies in: the West Indies. The new arrangement as proposed will lighten the burden. on;New Zealand, and on New South.,Wales, and on Queensland but increase it considerably on Victoria, and slightly on South Australia and Tasmania. The, distribution,-supposing the, gross cost to be. £197,00J, will be as follows:—.

Victoria ..T" ‘ ... £50,000 New South Wales . ... ... 50,000 New Zealand... ... ‘ ... 50,000 Queensland ... ... 27,500 South Australia ... „. 15,500 Tasmania. ... ... 4,000

Prom these amounts there will be proportionate reductions if the co9t should be less than £197,000, as it probably will. Tne Victorian increase of payment, though large, will appear less so if we remember that it ; was willing to pay £12,000 to, be admitted to the benefits of the Panama route* that it is to be provided at the general cost with a branch between Wellington and Panama, (not existent at present), and, also that its contribution to the Suez route, as calculated/is really fur less, than the proportionate advantages, it derives from that route. By an isolated policy it could not have gained greater advantages for the same money. . > The .contributions,, as agreed upon, are not calculated either according .to distance, or to population, or. to correspondence, nor accorqing to.!ariy;combination! of' all three/ but according ,to, .tlie general principles laid do.wii, inVALr. Parkos’s menipranduni.. There 4 ia; a .certain\ yag,ueries!s' v aborit; those principles-'yvliick 'makes, it; impqssible> to the' ffislfributddri r ;may''liave t6‘rie revised

hereafter if the different colonies increase their importriricO iri" a different 'ratio, be.cause there is noself-adjustingarrangement, as there would be, if tlie payment were ao-' cording, to. the. number of letters. But this re-adjustment, if necessary, will have to be carried out by the proposed Pederal* Council. , The. present ratio, of population in the! several cploaies, is, in, round nrimbors, ; as! follows i Victoria . ... * .. .... 630,000. : .New ; So ( , , r ; , 430,000 . South. Australia !, ~...: ... 165,000 New Zealand. ' " ; ... ... 22b,000 ; Queensland... ... ... 100,000 Tasmania • ... ... 100,000 Western Australia :.. ... P Total ... ...1,645,000 The present ratio of correspondence, i.e., ihe number ,of letters received and dis- : patched, in one year, is as follows:

The amount of correspondence sent by way of Torres Straits has been very small. It will be larger when the mail service by that route is fixed* and wfien it is known', that tlie postal charge is not higher than by any other route. The correspondence by the Panama route is only partially developed. The /mass of correspondence from this joloriy to Eogland goes via Southampton, find many of the letterwriters do not yet understand that letters sent via PanamaTcost the same as those via Southampton, and are not longer on the passage, indeed ; are generally a day*or two le*s. The statistics of next year will probably show a great increase in the correspondence via Panama.

" & ' s. d:'. Suez ; ... 175,567 l-G ‘ Tanama '■ ••••■.<:.• ‘ >■ 120,000 0 0 Torres Straits ... :.. 45,000 0 0

& s. d. ..Victoria ... 28,774 16 11 New South Wales ... 14,635 10 6 South Australia... ■..'.17,098 1 0 New Zealand . :.. 32,494 9 6 Queensland Tasmania ..; 9,474 7 4. ... 3,138 13 11 , "Western Australia 719 9 2

United Kingdom ... 69.437 13 2 Victoria ... 28.774 16 11 New South Wales ... 71,935 10 6 South Australia ... 17.09S 1 0 New Zealand ... 96,194 9 6 Queensland ... 54,474 7 4 Tasmania ... 3,138 13 11 Western Australia. 719 9 2

Via Guile. Via Panama. Victoria . 1,094,668 . ... 20,847 N. S. Wales . 475,303 ... 79,789 S. Australia, .. 251,423 '' . 3,120 New Zealand . .. 758,843 , ... 250,000 Queensland Tasmania... . 242,124' 82,476 W. Australia 34,6442,939,180