Manawatu Hearald. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1880. THE WELLINGTON-FOXTON MAIL SERVICE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 18, 2 November 1880, Page 2

Manawatu Hearald. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1880. THE WELLINGTON-FOXTON MAIL SERVICE.

♦ Our Palmerston contemporary, in Saturday's issue, explains as follows regarding the remarks we made upon the impracticability of the proposed tri- weekly mail service via Masterton. After quoting portion of our article, he says : — " The foregoing arguments are no doubt very conclusive, but our contemporary has based them upon the presumption that the present arrangements -would be continued ; but we are given to understand that they will not. Months ago Mr Macara told us, and we then published the statement, that he had been asked to tender for a tri-weekly mail via Masterton, one of the conditions of which was that the Wellington afternoon mail should be delivered in Palmerston next morning. That is, the mail which would leave Wellington by train at three o'clock and reach Masterton shortly after seven should be met by coach, and instead of stopping as at present at Eketahuna all night, the through journey should be made, and Palmerston reached in time to catch the morning FoxtonWanganui train. Mr Macara informed us that it could be easily done, and as his tender has been accepted we presume those are the terms upon which it is based." Of course if the plan sketched by our contemporary is carried out, the objections we pointed out will be to some extent obviated. It would, however, be interesting to know what increase of subsidy will be paid to Mr Macara for carrying the West Coast mails between Masterton and Palmerston, under the new arrangement, which will be decidedly more expensive than the present one from Masterton. The total saving effected on the subsidy for the West Coast mail service, through substitution of a triweekly for the daily arrangement, is said to fee £1000, but if we deduct from that amount the increase Mr Macara will be entitled to for the extra trouble and cost he will be put to in working the Wairarapa-Pal-merston service by night coaches, we think the total saving would be ma- j terially reduced. We endorse the j following expression of opinion by j our Palmerstou contemporary : — :i It may be remembered that when tenders were called for the tri-weekly mail to Foxton, it was specially j arranged that it could be cancelled at a month's notice, and consequently we would urge upon our Southern friends to back up the people of Pal- i merston in their opposition, and it is more than possible the tri-weekly service will be strangled in its very birth." J