AN OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 729, 9 April 1853, Page 3

AN OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE.

[From the "Age.”] Wc think that no one who reads the accounts of the vast emigration at present setting from our shores —both across the Atlantic and to the golden land of the East —can come to any other conclusion than that now, if ever, is the time for the agitation of an ocean penny postage. On every ground we hold such a measure to ho a necessity in the scries of our advances in civilisation—a necessity moral and physical—for the sake at once of friendly communication and commercial convenience. Within the last ten years this necessity has grown a thousand times vaster and stronger than it ever was before. Every emigrant who crosses the sea leaves a friend or acquaintance at home; so that for every emigrant there is a fresh addition to the necessity for cheap communication. Few, indeed, we hope, set forth upon the voyage without a pang of remembrance, or a flush of cordial feeling, towards some one left behind. Can anything, then, he more important or more reasonable than that every facility which can lie, should be, given to promote and favour the preservation of the bonds which bind the emigrant in the backwoods, and (he emigrant in (be bush, to his friends and acquaintances at home? In a national sense, we look upon it as of great consequence that colonists should never come to consider themselves as utterly segregated from the mother country, and the growth of such a feeling is likely to he promoted hy nothing more than difficulty and expense in communication. A member of a working family goes forth to push his fortunes in Canada or Australia. He is poor himself; bis relations at home arc poor also. The expense of a trans-oceanic letter makes a considerable hole in (he weekly earnings, and although everybody is glad to bear it for perhaps (he first half-dozen limes, yet there creeps on a feeling that George or Tom ought only to write at such intervals as really furnish them with something important and tangible to say. Not that there is any conscious diminution of affection on either side implied in the arrangement, but, in the long run, Hie want of communication, of close, frequent, and what wc cannot define better than “sensational” communication, begins to blunt the sensibilities and deaden (be remembrance. George or Tom writes, perhaps, once a twelvemonth on (he occasion of George having cleared a new allotment, or Tom having acquired a new sheepwalk; hut what wc would wish to encourage would be sensational and social correspondences —letters treating of every-day habits, and thoughts, and feelings letters which would keep up old remembrances and old friendships, and deepen and impress upon the settler’s mind that he was still held in the genial tics of the old country and of home It is a favourite doctrine to preach (hat our colonics are integral parts of the mother country, and that a Canadian or an Australian is an Englishman—although to a great extent under a local Government, and paying only local taxes —as fully and truly as is a Yorkshire or a Somersetshire man. If so, then why should not the Post Office treat him as such? Why should not the colonies he placed postally upon the fooling of “integral parts” of England, if, as it is contended, they ought to be so placed politically and commercially ? There can he no doubt but that active and unceasing correspondence would lend to keep up (be connection of colonies with (be mother country longer than it would otherwise last. At (lie same lime, we should he far from wishing to confine the boon of cheap inter-communication to ourowncolonics. The belter the understanding between Britain and America, the belter for civilisation, and (he belter for man, Wc may Joke a lit fie with our Yankee friends, quiz their peculiarities, be amused with their fus»y self-conceit, and sometimes talk seriously in reproof of their reckless schemes of territorial aggression. Our travelling novelists may caricature their “Prodgcrs” and (heir “Hr. Ginery Dunkles;” and our philological authorities may lament over (he perversity which has produced a dialect of English, in which gentlemen speak of “a loud smell” and “a tall distance;” hut, for all these little odds and ends of difference, we believe and hope, that seriously, and on all great points, the nations arc thorough and steady friends. Let it be considered that England and the States arc now the only two great empires in (lie world the people of which are politically free — can be taxed by none but themselves, and ruled by none but themselves. A quarrel between the two free powers of the world, then, would be in every respect deplorable—nay more, it would be utter madness. Every despot in Europe, throned upon his hundreds of thousands of bayonets, would rejoice to hear British and American cannon thundering together. They would hug themselves on the double suicide, and see in our weakness brightening visions of their own strength and likelihood of endurance. So long as America and England act together, they can, to all intents and purposes, rule the world. And surely such an alliance would be Air more natural, more consistent, and reliable, than any agreement we might make with Germany, at the mercy of (tic breath of a despotic monarch —or with France, dependent upon (he caprices of (he most tickle and unaccountable people in the world. After all, Anglo-Saxons arc safest with Anglo-Saxons. Two people of the same blood and (he same general temperament best understand each other. America does not and cannot forget that she drew her sons from English fields and English cities, and (he hurst of enthusiasm with which, at the time of the last invasion panic, the transatlantic orators and the press proposed dial in such a case America should send her every ship and her every fighting-man to help their English forefathers, was a striking proof of (he strength of (he latent sympathy v, Inch, if it

sometimes lies dormant, can so evidently and so easily be aroused between two people sprung from one source, and speaking a common language. Why, then, should not the United Slates, whom it is equally our interest and our duty to bind to us, be linked by the bright and geinal chain of cheap communication as well as the colonies? Better to open seals than to open fire —to poll each other with postbags than with thirty-two pound balls. The common language alone ought to be a suflicing argument, if (hat of common blood and common freedom failed. We wish (hat Mr. Elihu Burritt and his friends —whose good intentions and energetic efforts for (be promotion of peace and harmony over the world in general we have every respect for — would give up certain of their chimeras, which, for the present, at all events, arc unattainable, and apply their undivided energies to such practical peace preservatives as ocean penny postage. Wo know very well, indeed, that it was Mr. Elihu Burritt himself who originated, or virtually so, the ocean penny postage idea ; but be seems latterly to have neglected it, and run wild among impracticable schemes of universal European peace. We tell Mr. Burritt that his efforts in this direction, however well meaning, arc, in the present stale of Europe, simply ludicrous. What Europe requires is enfranchisement—is to fit itself for free institutions, and then, hy one mighty social surge, to sweep the armed despotisms which trample on its rights for ever from their thrones. We have peace now. Certainly—but what hollow, uncertain, despicable peace! France, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Italy—all hound like prostrate slaves beneath the new league of tiic crosier and lire sword. Till that he overthrown, there is no real peace—there ought to lie none —there can he none. True, there is now no movement in the air; hut stagnation is not serenity. The time of the whirlwind and (he thunder will come, and well will it be for England, in the universal uproar, if she finds herself on (he closest terms of alliance with tier really natural ally, and with all her colonics eager and able to assist her.