East Coast Mail Service.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 406, 2 September 1876, Page 2

East Coast Mail Service.

Sir. —Would you have the goodness to insert the following extract from the Mew Zealand Herald ? It will, I think, serve to show to what extent we are indebted to “ our member ” for, at least, one small matter in which he is not altogether a disinterested party :— “ We learn that the steamer Rosina, Captain Joseph Kennedy, which now & regularly between Gisborne and ’ Bay, calling at all intermediate ports, has been lately subsidised by the Government to carry the mails, thus alternating with the fortnightly overland mail, between Gisborne and Waiapu. This is certainly a step in the right direction, as the correspondence on the coast has so increased during the past two years, that a weekly, instead of a fortnightly mail, has been found to be indispensably necessary. The fortnightly mail service between Waiapu and Opotiki, which was sanctioned upwards of a year ago, has not been yet established, and the inhabitants—both European and Native —are loud in their complaints as to this delay. ******** The member for the East Coast, (Captain Read) was particularly requested to use his influence with the Post Office huthorities to get this mail service speedily established, but it would appear that he has not yet done anything in the nuitter. There is some talk of the inhabitants petitioning SirGeprge Grey on the subject, as their patience is now exhausted.” From what I learn Captain Read first of all got his friend Dohald to grant the subsidy to the Rosina, and then applied to the Government for a vote in extension Qf the East Coast service ; in fact he promised Messrs G. E. G. Richardson and Go., of Napier, to obtain a subsidy, if possible, for the Jane Douglas, or some equally approved boat, to run between Napier and Gisborne, but, of course, after the Rosina's subsidy being secured privately, the reply, publicly, was that the East Coast service was already too much overlapped. Perhaps, you Mr Editor canthrow some lighten this subject and oblige.—Yours, &c., A Traveller. [All the light we can throw on the subject will not lighten the darkness much; butwe will give our correspondent’s letter due attention. —Eo. S. P- A ]