New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4586, 1 December 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1.

The San Francisco mail service, under the new contract, certainly has had a most unfortunate beginning. Some time ago we referred to the fact that Mr. Hall, despite his previous mismanagement and something worse, was identified with the present contract, and this also appears to be distasteful to the Sydney Government. We were not, however, in full possession of the facts in connection with the start of the Vasco de Gama (the first boat under the new contract) from Sydney, until the arrival of the mail with our Northern exchanges. The Southern Cross of the 25th November has a leading article on the subject, which contains many facts the public should know, but which our telegraphic news only faintly outlined. The Cross says ; There seems rather an awkward hitch in the matter of the San Francisco mail service, as respects the first outward trip of the Vasco do Gama. It has again been an unfortunate beginning. Contractors and others concerned were too urgent. Having waited so long, and been content with the temporary service for so many months, it would have been much wiser to have carried on that service just a little longer until the new service was in perfect order. It is a pity that any cause for grumbling on the part of either of the Governments concerned should have existed at the outset of this arrangement. The various contracts for this work have had unfortunatebeginnings. Mr. Nellson McCann’s first venture, Mr. H. H. Hall's failure, and now with Mr. Hall, mysteriously and to the surprise of many, again concerned witli this new service as general agent, and again falling short of the arrangements necessary for a duo performance of the contract —all three instances are decidedly unfortunate as beginnings of great schemes. The request made by Mr. Hall to the Sydney Government to allow of the divergence of the mail boat to Auckland, instead of going to Fiji from Sydney, was refused. To a question put in tiie New Soutii Wales Parliament to the Postmaster-General, as to whether the Sydney Government would consent to this deviation flora contract terms, that gentleman, in reply, said that " the Government had not given their consent to any such arrangement, but had refused to allow any alteration; and in so doing they acted with the concurrence of the New Zealand Government. In the event of the mails being sent by way of Auckland or, by any other deviation of route, they would be given as any ordinary ship’s letters,” This refusal has been fully carried into effect, for not only did the Sydney Government withhold their consent to the request of Mr. Hall, butactually declined to allow any mail, not

even the ordinary mail from Sydney to Auckland, to be shipped by the Vasco de Gama." In a letter, published in Sydney, Mr. Hall writes;— 1 find myself placed in a most difficult position, with ° nl Y shin available, where two are required, and desire is to do my best to convey the mails of the two contracting colonies of New South Wales and Now. Zealand; and if in doing so, by the only means in my power, the company incur penalties, I rely on a just, if not liberal, consideration on the part of the Governments and people of both colonies. Our Auckland contemporary thinks the New South Wales Government was “ per- “ haps a little too illiberal” to insist upon the mail contractors earning their subsidy by fulfilling the terms of the contract. On the contrary, we think they were altogether justified in refusing to recognise the lop-sided service which Mr. H. H. Hall, on behalf of the Pacific Mail Company, proposed in lieu of . that for which the contractors were paid. What we want to know is what the New Zealand Government propose doing in the matter, for the breach of contract towards this colgny has been quite as great as it was towards New South Wales. The -Vasco de Gama was bound to come down the New Zealand coast, collect the mail, and sail from Auckland _to Sau Francisco, via Kandavau, taking thence the New South Wales mail to be transhipped from another of the contractors’ boats. This was not done. The terms Of the contract were violated; and what we want to know is whether the General Government will condone this gross -breach of contract 1 If so, the House of Representatives will require it at their hands. Indeed, we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that the connection of this Mr. Hall with the service is quite enough to stamp it with suspicion. It is, moreover, matter of extreme regret that the Pacific Mail Company has had anything to do with the contract, because we do not forget that when Mr. Webb made default, arid transferred his interest in the contract to a bogus company, this company in a few weeks sold the boats and plant belonging to Webb to the then president of the Pacific Mail Company, who, in his turn, rc took the benefit of the Act,” depriving the New Zealand Government of all chance of recovering the penalties under Webb’s contract. In the MookeHall contract, default was also made, while many of the European passengers were swindled out of their passagemoney on the last through trip ; and now we have the Pacific Mail Company the main contractors, with Mr. Hall once more on the scene, inaugurating an eight years’ steamboat monopoly, on extravagantly high rates of subsidy, by a deliberate breach of contract. This is a matter in which the credit and honor of the colony is concerned ; and it is neither to the credit nor honor of the colony to have its mail service to England mismanaged from year to year, and its Government fooled and laughed at by Yankee sharpers. There is a limit to this sort of thing, and we think the limit was stretched to the utmost when the Mooke-Hall contract failed. may add that the Cyphrenes was “ engaged to leave Sydney for Fiji one “ day after the departure of the Vasco “de Gama, and there meet the latter 1 “vessel to take on the New Zealand “ mails.” But that does not heal the’ breach of contract with New Zealand, which the Cross does not appear disposed to notice. This country will be called upon to pay ; then let it have what it bargains for, be it good, bad, or indifferent.