The Southland Times. INVERCARGILL : FRIDAY, JULY 25.

Southland Times, Issue 1771, 25 July 1873, Page 2

The Southland Times. INVERCARGILL : FRIDAY, JULY 25.

Mb Vogel's statement in the Assembly that Messrs M'Meckan and Blackwood had repudiated the six months' postal arrangement entered into by their agent here, will be hailed with satisfaction. True, the agreement was only intended to last for six months, but deliverance from six months of an inconvenience and injustice is worth being thankful for. The further intimation by the Premier that the Government had been in negotiation with Messrs M'Meckan and Blackwood for a three years' postal arrangement, and had reserved the contract for the approval of the House, is also matter of congratulation. The expression of the provinces of Otago and Canterbury as to the injustice of a mail system via Suez with any port other than the Bluff aa first and last of call has been so decided that it is not at all likely that the House will sanction any proposal not recognizing this important point. "We are, we believe, so far safe, and in the advocacy of the Bluff as first and last port of call, it is not with any desire that special advantages should be granted to the province of Otago, although from her important commercial position she may fairly claim a separate consideration, but on the ground that, everything taken into consideration, the general benefit is the most nearly adjusted. In any arrange ment that may be made some part of the colony will seem to have an advantage over another portion, and the route via the Bluff is open to less of objection and presents more advantages than any other "While we think the advantages of this route will commend themselves to the House, we deem it necessary to urge that the representation of the matter must not be allowed to drop. The scales of interest may be so nearly evenly balanced that a very small matter may decide the issue either way. Special representation, or the want of it, may influence some of the members for districts which, from their central position, are not particularly interested in the choice of route. The route via Hokitika will be a positive injustice to the provinces of Otago and Canterbury, while it offers no special inducement to any important portion of the community, whether considered numerically or commercially. Fending the decision of the House upon the question of the three years' contract, the next mail will be carried by the Sangitoto. The Invercargill Chamber of Commerce has communicated with the Dunedin Chamber, and received a reply, stating that a petition had been presented to the Provincial Council, and that the chairman bad moved " That the Provincial Government be authorised to provide a prqper service, if the General Government declined to do so." The Dunedin Chamber has also prepared a petition of inhabitants of the province to the House of Representatives, urging that to make Dunedin the last port of arrival and the first of departure, " ignores the importance of the correspondence between th 9 provinces of Otago and Canterbury and the United Kingdom, as compared with that of the rest of the Colony. It shows that in 1871 more than half of the entire correspondence of the Colony with Great Britain was that addressed to or despatched from Otago and Canterbury, and further that the correspondence of Otago with Great Britain is larger than that of "Westland, Nelson, Wellington, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, and Marlborough together, in the proportion of four to three ; that the course of poat between Dunedin and London, via the Bluff, may as a rule be reduced to four months, and this cannot be secured by the proposed course via Hokitika to any important town in the Colony. The inhabitants of this portion of the province will have an opportunity of signing this petition, and it rests with them to make their views known to the legislature. The interest of business men is so intimately concerned herein, that to urge them to action appears superfluous.