PENNY POSTAGE BY SEA. [From the Spectator.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 846, 10 September 1853, Page 4

PENNY POSTAGE BY SEA. [From the Spectator.]

The fondness of compromise may justify the demand of the Colonial Post Reformers for an uniform postage of threepence, and the same propensity may justify the official concession of a sixpenny rate ; but the strongest reasoning is still in favour of a penny rate, for colonies not less than for all the world. Elibu Burritt's position is stronger than that of Lord Canning or Don Manuel da Ysasi. The official reply is, that the department can't afford to charge less than sixpence, because the cost of the snbsidies to the packet service jb too heavy : but that argument was disposed of long ago, and it can only be reproduced by mixing up ideas distinctly separate. Exactly the same argument was opposed to Mr. Rowland Hill in regard to inland postage, and answered by him as it must be answered now. The chief cost in the transmission of letters consists in the expense of collection and distribution; the mere transit from post to post being a small fraction of the charge. Even a conveyance to America or Australia will not raise the cost of that intermediate part to any appreciable fraction of the penny for a single letter. At the usual allowance of weight for a single letter, a quarter of an ounce, a ton would comprise 143,360 : a ton of goods can be conveyed to North America for £3 : to Australia the freights recently have been extravagant, and they are declining, but say they are double the American amount — in that case, 24,000 letters could be conveyed to Australia for a pound, 48,000 to America — in other words, 100 letters to Australia, 200 to America, for a penny ; or, to bring it closer, the cost of conveying a letter to America would be the 200 th part of a penny, to Australia the 100 th part. Q. c. d. Bat it is said, regular packets cannot be got without you subsidize them ; and then as they are established for the purposes of postage, it is but just to impose the charge upon letter-writers. Quite just, if you could. But the whole of this part of the subject demands investigation. In the first place, we do not find that the promised certainty and speed are secured. We remember that years 111 1 'k, there was a complaint of newspapers being cast into a hut in Melbourne, to be

picked oat by those who expected them. We \ read quite lately of letters being recovered from the Melbourne steam-packet, in which they had been reduced to a wet mash. The contract with the Australian Royal Screw Steam Mistake^ proved the means of retarding letters ; the ves- | sels were a perfect trap for the non-conveyance of correspondence. Had the letter been sent by ordinary emigrant ships,? or by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, or via Singapore to find their way through the Dntch line from that port, they would have had a far better chance. Complaints also are made of the slowness of the West India machinery for postage. Wt do not get our moneys worth. But since Cunard's line was established, experience bus thrown considerable light on this subject. It turns out, as in the case of railways, that the human freight is bacoming, in many routes, of an importance rivalling or exceeding that of ths dead freight : the passengers to America and Australia now average 300,000 a year ; most vessels to Australia calling as the Cape. About COO passengers is considered the safe complement for a ship to Australia, though we have no doubt that with better means of ventilation the number may be considerably enhanced : the total number of passengers l»st year was 87,00 c ; a number which would imply about 259 vessels in the yoar to Australia for the conveyance of labouring emigrants alone ; and it is well known that ships aro sailing every week. The utmost efforts arc madt to ivprove the arrangements for steaming, in order to apply it to emigrant-conveyance ; and it is probable that before long this will bo dose. It is solf-evident that as soon as it cen ba effectually accomplished, any addition of expeast would be met by a large caving in time, in keep of emigrants on the voyage, in wages, &c. Thus tbt passenger traffic, North and South, promises to establish settled lines of communication like those of railways by land ; and letters can become a slight item in tho general charge, as they are in the weight. But even supposing that we must still subsidise certain lines of packets, does it follow that the postage should be high ? It is a question of policy, in the first instance j and policy is a fair charge upon the whole etate. But the very motive of the policy is to encoursga frs» correspondence — closer intercourse, which iv checked in a direct ratio with the amount of the postage. Moreover, the very object of tho charge is to recover the outlay, and it is more than doubtful whether that can be done by a high postage. Let us suppose that the subsidy inevitably entails a loss, which there is no hope of recovering; still it docs not follow that you will act most economically by exacting a high rate of payment. When once such a line ia established, the object must be to obtain as large t revenue as possible, whether to realize a profit or mitigate a loss. Now you cannot get at a letter writer snd tax him absolutely; otherwise you might raise ths whole Gum by a forced subscription. You can only distribute it, by guess, over the letters voluntarily sent ; and if your charge be high, the writer will stint the number of letters. In letter carrying, as in railway carrying, tho maintenance of the working stock being necessary at all events, the object must be to raise the largest revenue ; and that can best be done by a low rate. Some facts put togethar by Mr. Elihu Burritt illustrate this argument. " Five-eighths of all the foreign trade of the United States are with the United Kingdom. These vast commercial transactions must involve a vast commercial correspondence between the two countries. But nearly the whole of this correspondence flows into or from England and Scotland. Yet, notwithstanding that the island of Great Britain receives or sends away all these mercantile letters, it bas been stated on good authority that more than one-third of all the letters that pass between the United Kingdom and the United States are transmitted to or from Ireland! And by whom are these letters written ? — By the poor Irish emigrants in the United States and their poorer relatives and friends in Ireland. Nor are these all the letters sent and received I across the Atlantic by these Irish emigrants. Hundreds of thousands of Irish men and women live and labour in England and Scotland. These, too, receive a vast number of letters annually from America ; so that there is little doubt that the hard-handed children of Erin in the United States, and their poorer friends in the United Kingdom, actually produce one-half the correspondence which is now carried oo between the two great nations, even under the present high rates of postage." It is to be remembered, not only that these people have all been accustomed to the penny postage in England, but that they are all of a class to whom sixpence is "an object" ; while all of them could make free with pence. And this number of correspondents is increasing at the rate of more than 300,000 a year. If these facts and considerations warrant hope for a sixpenny or threepenny postage, a fortiori they establish the policy of a penny postage.