To the Editor op the Nelson Evening Mail,
Sir, — No Californian mail again. There is, to use an Irishism, something laughably ludicrous about the service. No wonder that some time ago Mr. Yogel got so savagely nasty about it on the Nelson wharf; but really in the present depressed stßte of this colony's finances it is cruel — it is worse, it is madness to continue that service any longer, and the sooner it is done away with the better forall concerned. A few months hence, at all events before the end of the year, Australia will be in telegraphic communication with Eugland, when the merchants of New Zealand will be able to send advices borne by the Australian steamers which touch here, or orher parts of the coast, once a week. Then why should Mr. Tbgel have gone to Australia in order to hoodwink the various Governments there in keeping up a miserable service which costs this poor colony so much and benefits the working class so little ? If it is to the interests of London shipowners to send wool ships out to this colony without a subsidy, surely it would be to the interests of New York and San Francisco shipowners to send their ships for our wool, flax, &c, without a subsidy also. As Mr. Saunders justly said, some time ago, the service is a piece of dreadful extravagance, and the greatest nuisance imaginable. Besides, tbese American mail boats, by running down the coast from Auckland to Port Chalmers do indirectly injure, more or less, our local shipping trade, and though the favored ports at which these boats call may be, aod perhaps are, benefitted by their pi'esence, those ports at which they do not call are in a manner, so to speak, placed at a disadvantage commercially speaking. To pay £50,000 a year for such an extravagant service as this is surely to pay too dearly for our whistle. Whether British or American it does not matter which, but as for myself I would rather see it British than American. But is it not high time that tbe people of New Zealand should wake up to the absurdity of being caught in the Vogelian web so nicely drawn around them by steam and finance. Yours, &c, The Port. R. For remainder of news see fourth, page.
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Bibliographic details
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 145, 19 June 1872, Page 2
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389Untitled Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 145, 19 June 1872, Page 2
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