THE MAIL SERVICE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 140, 3 November 1871, Page 5

THE MAIL SERVICE.

The prospect of Naseby being made —as we had reason some time back to hope—the half-way stage between Dunedin and Cromwell is, for the present at least, at an end, as the following letter from Mr. Elliott Elliott, secretary to the Postmaster G-eneral, to Mr. C. de Lautour, contains a direct refusal of the request of the Mount Ida Trade Association upon the subject:—

G-eneral Post Office, Wellington, 13th October, 1871. Sib, —I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 6th ultimo, forwarding a memorial from the Mount Ida Trade Association, praying that Cromwell may be substituted for Clyde as the terminus of the mail coaches running between Palraerston and Clyde, and that firrangements may be made for the coaches with the mails from Dunedin to arrive at Waseby on the first day, and at Cromwell on the following day. In reply, I am to state that in order to gire effect to the wishes of the memorialists, it would be necessary that the mails should leave Dunedin at four or five o'clock in the morning, or that the speed of the coaches could be considerably accelerated. The former course would involve the attendance of the despatching clerks in the post office at two or three a m., and the consequent increase of the staff of the office, unless the mails should be closed the previous night, a proposal which cannot be entertained ; and as the contracts entered into for the services under whieh the mails are conveyed between Dunedin, Naseby, and Clyde are for a period of three years from the Ist January last, the speed of the coaches cannot be accelerated during that period without an additional payment of about sixhundred (£600) pounds a year. The Postmaster-G-eneral regrets that, under the above circumstances, he is unable to grant the prayer of the memorial. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, Gr. Eliott Emott, Secretary.

Though so far a failure, the matter must not be allowed to drop, but must, ou the contrary, be more than ever and more strongly than ever agitated We ask for but little, but to that little, we feel that we are fully entitled, and that little we should be determined to have by the exercise of every lawful power at our command. When thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of pounds are being expended upon railways radiating in Dunedin, for which, in any case, we shall have our share of the piper to pay, we have a perfect right to demand that something should be done to improve inland communication. No Government can be honest or upright which will expend the whole of its consideration and means to exalt one or more places at the expense and to the injury of the whole. So soon as the members re turn from Wellington the Houndburn Hill deviation question must be again agitated.