HALL’S LINE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 14, 29 April 1871, Page 2

HALL’S LINE.

(Melbourne Age.)

The steamship Wonga Wonga will leave Sydney on the Ist of April, instead of the Bth as originally announced, for New Zealand and Honolulu, carrying the mails via San Francisco. This trip * will be an irregular one, in excess of the contract entered into with the governments of New Zealand and this colony. Mr H. H. Hall, the charterer, who is a. man of indomitable energy and enterprise, has just returned from California, where he has been to make arrangements for his projected new line. Calling at New Zealand is a grest drawback to vessels running between this port and the Sandwich Islands, and Mr Hall proposes to leave out New Zealand altogether in his new arrangements. The boats are to proceed direct to the Fijis unless arrangements should be ccnclnd-

ed with the authorities of New Caledonia for them to touch at the Isle of Pines. There will be a detention of IS hours at Fiji, and a second detention of about the same time at Honolulu. That place will no longer be the terminus of the Australian line, but the Sydney boats will run through to San Francisco. It is calculated that the Government will meet the vessels of the trunk line by a branch steamer at the Fiiis. The new line is projected to complete the journey to Liverpool under a time table of which the following are the main features: — Sydney to Fiji 1780 7£ Fiji to Honolulu ... ... 1710 11£ Honolulu to San Francisco ... 2100 9 Railway from San Francisco cisco to New York ... 3400 6f Passage from New York to .Liverpool ... ... 3200 9i Detention at Fiji & Honolulu 1 13,190 45 Great efforts are being made in Sydney to induce the Government to enter into the new contract. A deputation of the Chamber of Commerce is appointed to wait upon the Premier, and a petition to the Legislative Assembly is about being signed by the inhabitants. But Sir James Martin is one of the public men of Australia who have never attached much importance to postal questions of any kind. If he does not belong to them he gravitates very near to those whose motto is “ Australia for the Australians.”