RETALIATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 104, 20 April 1876, Page 4

RETALIATION.

. The London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, says : "An amusing but not wholly creditable squabble has been going oa between our Post-office department and the Post-master-General of the United States. At tho end of the year just closed the last-named, functionary was disgusted by receiving a cuble diepatch from the authorities at St Martin's-le-Graud to this effect : — * Money orders advised on lists from the, United States largely exceed the amount. - Please remit £30,000 on account.' The fuct was that the Americans wishing to send Christmas boxes to'- their friends and relatives iv England and Ireland — chiefly in Ireland, I suspect- — had been so liberal thnt:the money order- department; of the United States had been flooded with business, and largely overdrawn its, account hero. The PostmasterGeneral had sent £12,000 to London before the receipt of the English telegram, and was preparing to send another remittance, when this message, which ho, took, to be a • dun ' reached him. He was angry. He did not like to be ' dunned,' especially by cable; nnd. a method of revenge suggested itself to his mind, and was ut once acted upon. Tha United States Postoffice department had been transporting tho English mails to and from Australia across the continent — that is, from New York to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to New York — at a merely nominal rate, or, to come to figures, nt 4i a pound, although it paid the railway companies 15dols 303. for the service. Why the United States Government Bhould ever have consented to such an arrangement does not appear; but Postmaster-General Jewell was

glad of an excuse to set it aside. So he indulged in the luxury of a cable dispatch, and informed the British postal authorities that, since tbey were uncommonly particular about their beggarly money-order balance, he would pay it when he was ready; hut that on and after the first of the new year he should r.quire them to pay: 15dols 300 per pound for the transportation of tbe Australian -nails across Uncle Sam's dominions. The difference between 4-J a pound and 15dols 30a per pound is £102 13s 41 per too, and as the Australian and New Zealand mails sent by this route are very heavy and constantly becoming more so, the American Post-master-General doubtless thinkß he has made a good thing out of the little unpleasantness."