The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 428, 10 December 1856, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times.

Wednesday. December 20.

At the present time letters and newspapers from England to New Zealand are sent by sailing packets to Sydney, and forwarded thence, partly fhr the '-William Denny" steamer to Auckland, and partly by sailing vessel? to Nelson and Wellington. " Until a pljort time ago the whole of the mails for 2sew Zealand vrere sent by the steamer to Auckland, and those for the south were forwarded from that port by the '■ Zingari." Thss arrangement wa< found, however, to be productive of so much delay and irregularity in the lraiisinipsion of the correspondence fur the fouUitrn provinces, that the posl-ofHce authorities in Sydney were requested to forward the mail?, us opportunity offered, lv saili;^ vessels to Wellington and Nelson. That pl;.n was adopted, and is in operation at ihe present time, Amo:,jr the first papers laid before the General Assembly in If rf Just Peetion was a {-■sveuhir ih^pulch from the Secretary of 'Si-Ma, coulai;:i;jg- piopo.vals for the re-tistab-Hshint'ijt, on certain conditions, of postal communication by steam between Great Britain and the Australian colonies. One of these conditions was, that the scheme

should include a branch 'line from Melbourne to New Zealand : another condition was that the Australian colonies should pay half the cost of the entire service (including the branch lines) and that each of the colonies should contribute to this moiety, in proportion to the number of letters which it forwarded. The llon^e of Representatives, after discussing- the question, passed the following resolution : — " That this House, having taken into consideration His Excellency's Message, transmitting the despatch from the Secretary of State for the colonies dated the lth December last, upon the subject'of the re-estab-lishment of Postal Communication by steam between the United Kingdom and the Australian colonies, is of opinion that it is expedient that the jiroposai therein contained should be accepted upon the part of the colony of New Zealand.'* This resolution was communicated to the Home Government and to some of the Australian Governments.Jand is of course binding upon this colony. Later in the Session, but in connection with the '. above, the question of steam communication between the different provinces of New Zealand was full}* gone into ; the advantages of a communicadon once a fortnight, instead of, as at present, once a month, were considered to be so great, both in a political and in a commercial point of view, that in spite of the increased expense of such an arrangement, the house voted the amount required to carry it into effect. One of the obvious and principal advantages of a fortnightly communication, and one which doubtless weighed strongly with the House of Representatives in consenting to increased expenditure, is this—that the mails and passengers could by this means be made to arrive from the north and the south of New Zealand at a central port, say Nelson or Wellington, at the time fixed for the arrival of the steamer from Melbourne, and that on the arrival of this vessel the two inter-provincial steamers could immediately take their departure with mails and passengers for the northern and southern provinces respectively. Tin's is the naturalf arrangement which would have been adopted by any men of common sense who were desirous that an increased expenditure of public money should be pro- j ductive of benefit to the whole of New | Zealand, and not merely to a part of it. Than such a plan nothing is more easy, nothing more simple, nothing more fair ; and, the time having arrived for acting upon the resolutions of the House of Representatives, we naturally expected that some such arrangement would have been announced to us by the General Executive Government. With a degree of surprise and mortification, however, which, so |far as we can learn, is shared by every individual in this province, we gather from a recent Gazette that the General Government have ordered the mail steamers from Australia to proceed—not to any central port in New Zealand, not even to the port on the west coast, viz. Manakau, at which the Zingari now { delivers the Auckland mails—but absolutely to steam all tlu- way round the north Cape, and deliver the mails in the portof Auckland. In consequence of this preposterous decision, the benefits of the new Australian mail service will be entirely lost to the southern, provinces, which, let it be remem- | bercd, pay,the largest share of its cost. Four jif not five out of ihesix provinces will be positively in a far worse position than they are at the present moment; and will actually jbe called upon to pay some thousands of pounds for the purpose of having their letters delayed in their transmission by being sent round to Auckland. The tnly Province which will benefit, and that largely, will be the Province of Auckland. It is as clear a case of the interests of New Zealand being

sacrificed to the interests of Auckland it is possible to imagine. Upon the steps which have been and remain to be taken for the purpose of remedying the grievance which is attempted to be inflicted upon us we shall make some remarks upon a future occasion. That a scheme so fraught with injustice and injury to the most important, portion of the colony will be acquiesced in or tolerated by the Southern Provinces or their representatives we cannot for one moment believe.