MAIL ARRANGEMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4384, 8 April 1875, Page 3

MAIL ARRANGEMENTS.

(From the Melbourne Aryua, March 24.) We mentioned a few days ago that the Post-master-General and the Post-office Secretary of New South Wales had had a lengthened interview with Mr. Ramsay on the subject of the mail services via Suez and San Francisco respectively, and that arrangements had been entered into by which each colony will secure the advantages of a fortnighly mail. Pending the ratification of the agreement by the two Governments, the details are reserved for future publication ; but it is satisfactory to know that the representatives of both were actuated by a desire to afford the utmost facilities for carrying the project into effect. Geographical position has determined for each country the great channel of postal communication with England ; and as the time is not far distant when the Australsan termini of both routes will be brought into connection by railways, nothing more is required than the exercise of a spirit of mutual accommodation, in order to make the mails alternate in their arrival and departure, and thus give to New South Wales and Victoria the benefits accruing from a fortnightly mail, without adding anything to the amount of the present subsidy. Apart from the more direct and obvious benefits to be anticipated from such an arrangement, we may hope that it will pave the way for an improvement in the commercial arrangements of the two colonies. If wo recognise the interests of both as identical in all matters affecting the transmission of letters and newspapers to and from the other end of the world, the Legislature of Victoria may be brought in time, perhaps, to perceive and acknowledge the mischievous folly of the fiscal policy which sets up artificial barriers to obstruct the mercantile intercourse of the inhabitants of neighboring provinces of the British empire, and endeavors to accustom the inhabitants of each to regard the people on the other side of the border as foreigners. Were it only for the sake of consistency, the two Governments should spare no effort to abolish a system which is a discredit to the boasted intelligence of the ago, injurious to the best interests of both communities, and altogether at variance with the honorable and laudable understanding which has just been arrived at by the Post-masters-Genera! of New South Woles and of Victoria respectively. Accepting the Suez and San Francisco routes as settled and unalterable, at any rate for some years to come, and seeing that so large a portion of onr subsidy to the P. and O. Company is now recouped by the revenue accruing from postages, the question arises whether wo might not advantageously comply with the request which is about to be made by the owners of a fine of steamers via the Cape, to allow them a subsidy for the conveyance of an auxiliary mail. The rapid passages made by the St.Dsyth and the Durham justify the expectation that the voyage will be regularly made in from forty-two to forty-nine days ; while this route will always be popular with persons coming out to Australia for the first time, on account of its superior economy, coupled with the celerity of the transit. According to advices received by the last mail, two of the directors of the Australian Direct Steam Navigation Company were to leave England by the Victoria, which maybe looked for in Hobson’s Bay about the middle of next month, their object in visiting Melbourne being to negotiate a mail contract, if possible, with the Government of this colony. There are many reasons why a proposal of this kind should receive favorable consideration ; the chief of these being that, in return for a subsidy of tliis kind, the Administration would be

justified in requiring the company to thenpassage rates so as to make them conducive to an emigration of the most desirable kind, A golden opportunity is afforded to us at the present time of replenishing our population and of increasing the two great factors of wealth, capital and labor, in a manner which no class of the community could object to. Owing to the severe financial crisis which America is passing through, and the tempoiary check it has given her progress and prosperity, not only is there a serious diminution in the stream of emigration flowing across the Atlantic, but there is an actual ebbing of a portion of that stream to Europe ; and if we could succeed in catching it at its rebound, the circumstance would be fortunate indeed. But we can only hope to do this by a partial removal of the two great impediments to unassisted emigration from England to Australia —the length of the voyage and the cost of the passage. If the former can be reduced to between six and seven weeks, and the latter can be adjusted so as to bear some ratio to the time occupied, we shall have virtually brought these colonies three or four thousand miles nearer the mother country, and have lessened pro taato both the natural disadvantages of our geographical position and the reluctance to emigrate to Australia which is at present entertained by numbers of persons who are otherwise favorably inclined to do so. In this view of the matter, a mail subsidy to the Australian Direct Steam Navigation Cornpuny, under conditions calculated to secure moderate passenger rates to intending emigrants, and regular and rapid transits, would be a most judicious expenditure of the public money. To the sort of emigration which would be thus promoted, none of the objections could apply which are urged with so much persistency and absurdity against assisted immigration. The persons who come out at their own expense would belong to various classes of society, and would presumably possess those qualifications of industry, energy, and enterprise which are most desirable, and the exercise of which on the part of the millions who have emigrated to North America during the last half century, has assisted to make the United States and Canada what they are. The movements of population resemble those of rivers. When they have once graved a channel for themselves, the tendency of the stream is to adhere to and to deepen it. Across the Atlantic the current has flowed with a steady unbroken force for so many years, that in the European mind the very idea of emigration has come to be inseparably associated with America as its object and destination. We have now an opportunity of diverting that current, and if we are wise we shall not neglect to take advantage of it.