A 33 DAYS MAIL SERVICE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5682, 16 June 1879, Page 3

A 33 DAYS MAIL SERVICE.

TO THU EDITOR Or THE NEW ZJULAN* TIMES. Sir, —By the last mail inwards I was a passenger from England, travelling the whole distance with the mails. I have been very much interested in, observ- : ing at the different stages of the journey how much the lime might be shortened. , , , The time supposed to be taken, as at present arranged, is I believe from Loudon to Auckland 40 days and to Sydney 45. , This I think you will see might be reduced to 33 days to Auckland and 38 days' to Sydney. The present unnecessary delays and loss of time will be seen by the following All the, mail bags meet, and are put on board the Atlantic steamers at Queenstown (20 hours or say one day froin London); the average passage of the boats that carry these mails to New York is 8| days. The different lines take it in turns, tha ■White Star steamers sometimes doing, it in 74 days, so that no time can be saved on the Atlantic. The railway across the American continent, from the time the mails are landed at New York to the time they are alongside the Pacific steamer at San Francisco take, generally from 8 to 9 days, in the case of last mail it was 8 days 5 hours. This should and could be reduced to 5J days (it has been done in under 4. days); but allowing 5 days for the railway, arid 6 hours in New (York, and 6 hours in San Francisco, it could be easily done if the Railway Company chose in 5i days. The unnecessary delay along the whole of this railway journey much impressed myself and another New Zealand passenger (Mr. Duff, of Napier). During the last three days the mail train was nothing more than what the Americans,call an, accommodation train, i.e., stopping at every little roadside station to do little more than wake up the single inhabitant, the station'master ; or if in the day to have a chat or drink with this individual. Then on the Pacific Ocean,—it is here where the mails travel so very slowly. Whtn the colonies are paying such a heavy'subsidy as £72,000. to one line of steamers, they should , see that at least the service is 1 done in the shortest' possible time. The Atlantic steamers render fh o service they do without, subsidy, only getting a freight on the actual weight of the mail bags; I see no reason why the Pacific mail steamers should not be. expected' to do ,as much as to speed with the enormous' subsidy they at present . receive. From San Francisco to Auckland is 200 miles less than double the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic is crossed at a speed of 14-i to 16 knots per hour, and takes an average of 8J days to do! it in ; the Pacific at the same speed should be crossed to Auckland in 16 days instead of as at present 22 days. So if we put down—Crossing, the Atlantic, 8J days; American Continent, 54 days ; arid even 18J days instead of 16 for the Pacific Ocean to Auckland, 18J days; total, 32 days. The Pacific Company’s boats average 11J knots, and I believe burn ,41 to 48 tons of coal per day, which is just the usual amount of coal burnt and speed obtained by the slowest cargo steamer on the Atlantic.

The accommodation, provisions, and comfort for the passengers on the present Pacific boats is good, but the speed is nothing near what it should be for such subsidised mail steamers. But a very small subsidy should be given where the time, as it is, is almost unlimited, and it is the opinion of many practical men I have met that for the £6OOO per month now spent, a service equal to the Atlantic'should be now obtainable, and would be obtained if

the contract had now to be - re-made. The present contract was made at a very unfortunate time for New Zealand, when there were few, if any, steamers of high speed in England wanting employment, which is not so now. The New Zealand Post Office goes to a great expense and trouble in sending two post office officials on each steamer to San to save perhaps little more than a day in sorting the letters ; but little notice seems to be taken of how many days are otherwise unnecessarily lost, as shown above. Might I also point out how very much better it would be for both passengers and letters if the mail steamers touched at Wellington instead of Auckland, which would be a saving in time of fully another two days to seven-eighths of the letters and passengers for New Zealand, and not a loss of more than half a day at most to the Sydney people.—l am, &c., Stephen Menzies. Mclntosh Bay, Lyttelton, June 9.