New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1875.
The report of the Post and Telegraph department of Victoria for the past year, presented to the Melbourne Parliament, is an interesting document. It appears that the cost of the Suez mail service to Victoria, has been reduced, by the postages, to £12,500, an insignificant sum compared with the advantage gained by making Melbourne the terminus of the main line of steamers. This result is said, and very properly so, by Victorians, to justify the action taken by Mr. Francis, after the Intercolonial Conference, in reference to the new contract with the P. and O. Company. Or, to put it plainly, this Minister refused to be bound by any resolution of a conference of delegates from other colonies, to the prejudice of Victoria, It would have been very odd if he had allowed himself to be trammelled in any way by it. But does this fact not furnish a sufficient answer to that gentleman’s successor in the Victorian Government, that a Customs union among the Australian colonies is impossible, until a uniform tariff has first of all been established. And then would intervene local jealousies. Melbourne would seek, in that case, to monopolise all the import trade of the Australasian group, to the detriment of Sydney, which the older city would oppose with all its might; and the knowledge that such a contest would inevitably follow a uniform tariff and Customs union, will be an effectual bar to its accomplishment, just as Mr. Francis, acting for Victoria, and Mr. Parkes, for New South Wales, scattered to the winds the resolutions of the last Intercolonial Conference, thereby, we trust, putting a stop to those expensive holiday excursions, which formed such an agreeable relaxation to colonial Ministers every two or three years. Speaking on this subject, at the London banquet in his honor, the Governor of Victoria, Sir George Bowen, said;
Since I have been in England I have often been asked, “When will the Australasian colonies be united in one Dominion, like the colonies of British North America ?” The true reply is that Englishmen at the antipodes, like Englishmen at home, are thoroughly practical, and adverse to constitutional chjmges until some urgent need is felt for them, if, indeed, Australasiawere now confederated, the new Dominion would at once take its place among the foremost States of the world; for, as the latest official statistics will show, it would have an aggregate trade valued at ninety millions sterling, and an aggregate public revenue of some fourteen millions sterling, and I need scarcely say that the new Dominion would remain, like Canada, in loyal allegiance to the Crown. Still, Canadians often tell us that their Dominion would not have been created so soon had it not been from the “pressure from without,” so to speak, of the great neighboring republic of the United States. The Australians, on the other hand, are “the monarchs of all they survey,” in the Southern Seas. In the absence of all “pressure from without," the Australian colonies may prefer, for an indefinite period, to continue to revolve, like planets, each in its own separate orbit, round the central sun of England, to which all, as I have already said, are passionately attached. Moreover, there is the question of the tariff, on which Sir Charles DuCane so ably expatiated the other day. But I have no time to allude to this rather ‘‘burning question” further than remarking that, of course, an Australian Customs League, or Zollverein, must precede an Australian Bund, or Confederation. Meanwhile, pending the consummation of a close union, every Australian, like every other colonist, will continue to feel that the true and supreme federation for the colonies is the permanent maintenance of the integrity of the Empire, and that the true rallying point for the people of the colonies, as for the people of the mother country, is the throne. We have omitted the “ cheers ” in the foregoing extract from the Times’ report, but the sense stands well enough without them. It is quite clear that Sir George Bowen does not think there is any immediate probability of a federation of the Australian Colonies. There is too much unoccupied territory to play with, too many interests to conserve and rivalries to cherish, for the introduction yet awhile of a broad national policy on the Australian mainland. Victoria will continue to retrograde, by virtue of its mistaken legislation ; New South Wales will slowly progress by virtue of its sounder fiscal policy, until, in the case of Victoria, the people will be coerced into demanding reform, and in that of New South Wales, they have become strong enough to break up the land monopoly which is retarding its advance. When these things come to pass, as they are certain to do in the natural order of events, a uniform Customs tariff and confederation will be possible, but not till then. Queensland and South Australia would have too much to gain to offer any objection to a federal policy, the first decided step towards national existence ; but meanwhile each may pursue its independent career without troubling itself on the subject, as the mutual antipathies of Melbourne and Sydney will keep the stronger colonies apart for years to come. Reverting, however, to the cost of the Suez mail route to Victoria, we cannot avoid contrasting the smallness of the amount with what we are to pay in New Zealand for the Pacific service. In round numbers, we are to pay £45,000 annually, to be reduced by the amount of postages. Now, for the financial year 1873-4, the postal revenue was £60,535, of which, of course, only a portion went to reduce the mail subsidy for the San Francisco service, and about an equal amount was lost to the colony on the postages via, Suez. Considering, therefore, that Otago, and to some extent Canterbury also, use the Suez route for their English correspondence, the sum to be credited to the San Francisco route cannot be large. New South Wales, we find, estimates postages at £20,000 yearly, and they set against the balance of £25,000 the commercial advantages which the line will give them. “By taking a compre- “ hensive view of all the attendant “ circumstances,” remarks the Sydney Morning Herald, “we do not think it “ would bo difficult to show that the out- “ lay is adequately recompensed.” New South Wales looks forward, (as we do in this colony,) to a very large commercial development from the Pacific line, and there is reason to believe that the result will fully justify these expectations. But meanwhile the Pacific service will bo an annual charge of £25,000 to the taxpayers of New South Wales, which they are expected to recoup by extended trade k Doubtless New Zealand will participate in this extension of commerce, and it is clearly to its interest to have direct communication with the outlying groups of tropical islands in the Pacific, as well as with the United States. But in entering upon this undertaking wo should count the cost, and reduce the expenditure to the lowest point consistent with efficiency. This can only he accomplished by excluding the coastal service, which, so far from being considered a paying part of the contract heretofore, was the means of breaking down Webb’s line. Mr. Russell, in his letter to the Postmaster• General, November, 1873, [vide Appendix
to Journals, 1874, vol. 2,] puts'the objections to this branch of the service in a strong light, and we are convinced these have not been lessened by later experience. If, therefore, asavingof £IO,OOO t0£15,000 a year could be effected by omitting the coastal service from the contract, it should be done. Money would be saved, and the whole colony better served, by making Wellington the port of arrival and departure of the main steamships. The necessity for saving will be apparent when the engagements of the colony are considered, together with the fact that the San Francisco service, by route B, provisionally adopted, will not meet all the requirements of the South for mail purposes. The cost to this colony of mails carried by sea would be ; San Francisco .. .. .. .. £45,000 Melbourne to New Zealand .. .. 5,000
Making a total of £50,000 yearly in the shape of subsidies, to be reduced by postages. We are unable to fix the amount of these, but they cannot exceed £20,000, leaving an annual expenditure of £30,000 to be borne on the general taxation of the colony. The returns appended to the report of the PostmasterGeneral last session, prove that the Suez mail route was more freely used by this colony than the Californian service during 1873. But that was no doubt occasioned by the uncertainty and unreliableness of the service. Under the new contract, however, there is reason to believe that this cause would not exist, and therefore it is that we have put the probable recoveries from postages at £20,000. If the colony can have the main service performed for less money than it must pay by adopting route B, we say it is the duty of the Legislature to adopt the cheaperone. Moneyshould not be squandered just now. Let us have the San Francisco mail service, by all means, but let us have it at as cheap a rate as may be consistent with efficiency. When we find that the payments of Victoria and South Australia to the P. and O. Company for a four-week service to Galle amount to £22,500, New Zealand may well grumble to pay at the rate which existing arrangements, and the new contract, would impose upon her. The joint population of Victoria and South Australia is over one million; their united debt is short of New Zealand’s indebtedness; their revenue and trade are far in excess of ours; and yet we share with them the cost of their mail subsidy, in addition to paying our own subsidies. And New Zealand must continue to do so. Commerce cannot be tied up by postal contracts. It will be impossible to dispense with the Suez mail route, hence an intercolonial boat must be subsidised as at present, and postages must be paid besides on all correspondence, &c., via Galle. This being the case, we cannot help thinking that route B is not the service which the General Assembly should approve.
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4468, 15 July 1875, Page 2
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1,721New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1875. New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4468, 15 July 1875, Page 2
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