Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Thursday, November 3, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 994, 3 November 1881, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Thursday, November 3, 1881.

This is the time of year which should be acceptable to country settlers in which to agitate for the establishment of branch Post Offices at Patutahi and Whakato, or their vicinities. Population is increasing tolerably fast there, and the inconvenience and annoyance, both with regard to business and domestic matters, must be very great. As the case stands at present, inland residents have to send to town for their correspondence, and are dependent on each other’s good offices and obligations to get it at all. This was bad enough when the population was more sparse, and the visits of steamers

to the Bay less frequent, but now the grievance is more grievous to be borne. From what we learn from the Chief Postmaster, Mr. Shrimpton—a most obliging gentleman who, we are sure, will expedite the settlers’ views all in his power—it appears that the first step in the direction indicated is for the residents in each locality to memorialise the Government, through the Postmaster-General,..and put the unatter as fully and statistically as possible. But there is one feature the memorial should contain, and which strikes us as peculiarly absurd, namely, that the memorialists must’ state their willingness to support the branch service, either wholly, or in part, at their ow'n cost. We cannot see either the justice or the principle of this ; or if there is, any of the latter element in it, it is a bad one. If the settlers in any given locality have to be taxed in a second degree, what 'need is there of obtaining the permission of the Government to do so ? If they have to subsidise a mailman and branch Post Office'they may as well ignore the Government altogether, and provide for the service themselves, in which case they would, at least, have them under their own control. It ■may certainly be that the Government will be willing to contribute something, so that the whole cost does not fall on the settlers. But then who become the subsidisers ? This is an

inverted order of things which springs from no necessity. Of course it cannot be expected that every half-dozen stragglers in the country can claim to have branch Post Offices established in their localities; but we do claim for them, that, when other circumstances demand it, a consideration should be paid to their wants. The postal service, as a whale, is a payable one, and even a little loss in some directions must, at times be submitted to in the interests of the public welfare. We shall allude to this subject again ; but, in the meantime, it would be well for the country settlers to take the initiative.