THE AUSTRALIAN POSTAL SERVICE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 627, 10 November 1858, Page 4

THE AUSTRALIAN POSTAL SERVICE.

THE PANAMA. AKD SUEZ EOT7TE.

The Australian postal contract for the future service is ?till a question of deliberation with the Treasury and Admiralty, and nothing1 definite is } ret determined. Idle rumours have been circulated, to the effect that the Government had resolved to establish a fortnightly mail to Australia, alternately via Suez and via Panama. The Admiralty, however, we understand, see such cogent objections against even a trial of the Panama route that it will not be further considered. The very fact that the Panama route exposes all parties to the dangers of the yellow fever in passing the West Indian island of St. Thomas to the Isthmus, is of itself a good and valid reason why this course should not be adopte'd, while, on the other hand, facilities would be given to America to trade with our Australian colonies at our loss and expense ; but the most fatal objection is, that the mails could not be delivered, even at Sydney, the colony most interested in the Panama route, in the same space of time as they would be received from Europe vkl Suez, while as regards the

other colonies of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, *fee, they would undoubtedly refuse to bear any portion of the subsidy necessary for the Panama route. Besides, the Panoina route is untried, for the reasons, no doubt, which we have assigned against its adoption; but that ~vid)snez has been fully shown to meot all the requirements of the mother country and the Australian colonies as respects postal intercourse/ notwithstanding1 the inefficient manner in which the service has been hitherto conducted. We have frequently, nevertheless, received Melbourne news in. London vid Malta in forty days, and with proper arrangements on the Suez line there is no doubt but that telegraphic despatches would be made known to the metropolis within 35 days. In the year 1851 the Australian steam postal service was submitted to a committee in the House of Commons, under Lord Jbcelyn, at which the respective merits of the projected routes were deliberately and patiently examined — the Suez, the Panama, and the direct route via the Cape of Good Hope; and upon the evidence adduced that committee reported' iii favour of the last-mentioned, as best adapted to the general interests of the three colonies of Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales ; but, at the same time, some members of the committee recommended that another route should be thrown open for alternate bimonthly services vid Suez, as well as the Cape of Good Hope. Experience has shown that the route vid the Cape of Good Hope was too long and tedious for tire'size of the vessels employed, and the route via Suez became adopted by universal consent.

That via Panama has never been thought worthy of a moment's consideration by disinterested parties j and we assert, without fear of contradiction, that, supposing- a fortnightly mail was despatched alternately via Suez and via Panama, the succeeding- Suez mail would reach all the colonies," excepting- New Zealand, prior to the receipt of the mail sent forward a fortnight previously via Panama. — Mining Journal. .

(From the Some News, 16th August.) The present state of the Australian postaL question, 'as it is now entitled to be called from the protracted deliberations bestowed upon it, may be pretty clearly collected from the particulars we have put together concerning it in another column. It seems, if some authorities are to be believed, that the notion of an alternate service by the Suez and Panama routes has been abandoned by Government, yet, that, notwithstanding the determination, a number of gentlemen, influentially connected with Moreton Bay, New South Wales, and New Zealand, have prepared a memorial to tlie Colonial Secretary, setting forth the importance and necessity of establishing au alternate communication via Panama, for the use of the colonies in which they are directly interested. The arguments, for whatever they are worth, on both sides, are fairly presented in our current number; but we apprehend that the choice of routes, important as the consideration is, yields in immediate interest to the certain establishment of some one route by which the communications with our colonies may be, at all events, kept up with regularity, if not with all the despatch or convenience that could be desired. It is idle to discuss two routes before we have got one; or to insist on the merits of Panama, about which there is much doubt, while we are suspended over Suez, about which there is no doubt at all.. The fault of our Government is, not that it hesitates in establishing separate routes to each of the colonies, but that it delays in establishing- a single route to any. Certainty, regularity, and despatch by any one route is the desideratum. According to existing appearances we are as far from the attainment of this end now as ever, in spite of the pleasant promises of the new Secretary. The Colonial office and the Admiralty cannot agree. Australia therefore must wait. In the meanwhile, trade suffers, emigration checks its eag-er flow, and a thousand interests, public and private, are kept in abeyance. Our only hope rests on the absolute necessity of "doing something and doing it soon. 'It is one of the many golden opportunities of Lord Derby's administration; and if Ministers be not dis- ■ posed to take advantage of : ifc.for.the. sake . of the colonies, they will probably.see the, wisdom of doing so for their own. Postal Communication with Australia. —A meeting of the Australian Association was held on July 29th, at the London Tavern, for the purpose of considering the question of postal communica-

tion between the mother country and Australasia generally. It is interesting to draw attention to this circumstance, inasmuch as all the i*esolutions passed confirm the views we have taken of this important subject. The substance of the whole proceedings may be said to consist in the expressed determination of the meeting to urge the necessity of only one route —that by Suez, and of the establishment of a fortnightly communication. True it is that gentlemen connected with JBew South Wales endeavoured to impress on the meeting the value of and the necessity for a postal route via Panama, but the ultimate -division on the question showed that a mere section alone desired the establishment of this means of intercourse. Indeed, the secretary himself, Mr. Youl, said, "the Government had stated they/ were only prepared to pay the subsidy for one route, and that they did not see the necessity for any other;" while, in full confirmation of this expressed opinion, and of our oftrepeated views and statements, the meeting resolved " That the unsatisfactory working of the former experiments by the route vid Suez is so clearly traceable to mismanagement and want of experience, that its effective operation is undoubted, if undertaken by competent parties, possessed of the necessar}' means, and that nothing should be allowed to supersede the service by that line"—namely via Suez. Respecting- the Panama route, Captain Parfitt, a gentleman of great nautical experience in Australian seas, expressed his conviction "that a fortnightly communication, vid Suez, might be carried out at the same cost as a monthly communication vid Panama." Furthermore, the se- j cretary said that "if they had the two routes, letters starting on the Ist of the month by Panama would reach the colo j nies at the same time as letters posted on the 16th would arrive by the Suez route." It is clear that the Government must at once act in this matter.