A FORTNIGHTLY MAIL SERVICE,

Otago Daily Times, Issue 112, 26 March 1862, Page 6

A FORTNIGHTLY MAIL SERVICE,

The unarrival of the English December Mai!, has induced the following letter on the subject o a fortnightly mail. - TO TUB .EDITOR OP THE ARGUS. Pi it, —Whilst kept hour by hour, for days together, on the tenterhooks of expectation for the I arrival of this' all important monthly mail, I j would revert once more to the expediency of establishing what I long laboured for while in England—a fortnightly steam communication between Australia and Great Britain. If we were now waiting for fourteen days' liter news instead of a whole: month, we might be beset with rather less gnawing anxiety. And if this mail has broken down altogether, ire should only have half the time to wait for our letters to be brought on. Let us glance at the figures, while in the full discomfort of this irksome delay, and let us see at what a trivial cost this great public convenience might lie purchased. .. .The■present service costs £120,000 a year. Of this, the Imperial Government p;iys one-half, or £60,000. About another half of'the remaining £60,000 is met by postages, leaving £30:000 to be divided amongst all these colonies—a sum perfectly insignificant as compared with the advantages derived. Of this about sixty per ceut falls to our share or £14,000 a-year. Now, this fortnightly service would have been established long since but for the cross purposes of New South Wales and South Australia —the one eager fur the panama route, the ether insisting upon the steamers touching at Kangaroo Island. I travelled on the Indian line with M r Laing, the Secretary of the Treasury, who told me that if the colonies wished it, and the company was prepared to carry it, he had no doubt a fortnightly service would be granted. '' But we won't pay our share," say Sydney and Adelaide,'"unless, unless, and unless—"

To show the utter hollowness of the cry, as regards the expense,. Adelaide, contributing about £3000 or .£4OOO to the general service, enters into a contract of about £2000 a month, or £24,000 ayear, to get her letters two or three days earlier by a branch .steamer to King George's Sound.

" We won't pay our share," is easily met by Victoria guaranteeing the whole and saying,-— " Sisters, we are going to get our letters fortnightly. You can have yours if you choose to pay your proportion.'1 Of course there is only one real answer. Their merchants must have their letters if onr merchants gets theirs. And despite of threats, no colony could allow itself to be placed in the ridiculous position of being voluntarily behindhand in its correspondence as regards the other colonies. This has at last been, thoroughly perceived by all the colonies, and the Imperial Government too, which has agreed to deal with .Melbourne solely, and would do so at once if we could refit the steamers.

,:. jThejextra service for a fortnightly mailcouldbe worked cheaply",probably withone other steamer ; and for X 60.000 additional, I believe the com pauy would jump at it. So that, by the same proportion, we should achieve the inestimable boon of twice as frequent communication with the world for something like L 9,000 per annum, or little more than one-third the amount paid by Adelaide for her special steamer to King George's Sound.

This amount is about fournence per head of our population, and it would b» surely better to pay this fourpence than to be kept in the suspense of the last fortnight.

It is worth remembering, in this question of steam communication, that onr mercantile classj to which a community naturally looks for perfecting postal arrangements, are. for obvious reasons, unfavourable to a more frequent service. The departure Of a mail involves ycry hard work, and is too severe upon the merchant to allow him to .think without horror of a semi-monthly i steamer. But the great bulk of the colonists are actuated by no such dread as this ; and the Aiist laiian colonies have now attained an importance that renders practical isolation fcr :i whole month at a time an intolerable inconvenience, and a slur upon their activity and intelliffenee.— Lam, Sir, your's obediently, Edward "Wilson. Feb. 21.