THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL SERVICE. Mr Milne on the Atlantio Service. A Budget of Valuable Information.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 86, 24 January 1885, Page 3

THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL SERVICE. Mr Milne on the Atlantio Service. A Budget of Valuable Information.

Sik, — Permit mo through your columns to supplement what I said at the Chamber of ! Commerce meeting on Thursday. I received "by the mail on that morning a mass of information regarding tho sailings of the various mail steamers from Liverpool, which goes to show that by fixing our mail day for Thursday we are about as badly served in the Atlantic as it is possible to be. By an arrangement between the lnman and White Star lines, commencing with this year, the former will sail on Tuesdays and the latter on Thursdays, the eflect being that our mails will be conveyed by tho White Star line. According to their published timotablo, they will be conveyed during tho next six months by the following ships :—: — Adriatic, Germanic, Celtic, and Republic. These vessels are not modern ones ; most, if not all, of them have been running over ten years, and their steaming averages for eight years for the voyages from Queonstown to Now York are, omitting fractions ;—; —

If the mail day were altered to Saturday, so as to take advantage of the swift steamers of the Canard and Guion lines, we should, I am persuaded, get our letters in Auckland on the same day as we now do, thus gaining two days. You have already published the remarkable running of the Oregon in 6 days 10 hours. The Alaska and Arizona are making passages only a few hours longer, and the Umbria, when regularly put on the service, is expected to equal, if not to eclij^c, these. The (following remarks on the occasion of an experimental cruise of the Umbria were made by Mr Blackwood, the Secretary of the Poat-office in connection with tho Cunard Company and the Government :— He said: "It is now almost half a century since the connection of the Cunard Company with the Poatoffice in regard to the carrying ot the mails of this country to the United States and to some other parts of the globe first commenced. . • You would be surprised to learn the vast amount of corresf ondence which their ships have carried. Only last year I ascertained that they carried in one direction alone— out to America — no less than seventeen million letters and other articles. It i 3 a matter of extreme gratification that in these forty-fivo years not one untoward incident has occurred in connection with the conveyance of the mails ; not one mail bag has been lost. ... It is quite true that thoro has boon of lato an offort made by Mr Fawcett in the interests of the commercial coirespondence of tho country to enlist the service of the very fastest steamers sailing at the precise moment in the place of the more fixed and regular, and often equally fa3t, service which is afforded by the three companies, and mainly the Cunard Co., which now carries the mails. A great many of you are aware that the result was that, although some excellent offers were received, there was nothing that could compare, as regarded fixed regular service and speed combined, with the offers made by the Cunard Company and the two associated companies. It has, therefore, been decided, as you have seen from the papers, to continue, for the preeent at least, the connection which has so long, so honourably, and so happily subsisted between the Government and the Company whose latest ship we have seen launched today. . . . Of course, it is the business of the department which I represent here to avail itself of the very best service for the interest of the country that can bo found ; but we believe, judging from what past experience has shown us, that the Cunard Company will not be behindhand in the competition." The interests of Auckland are intimately bound up with the San Francisco service, and I trust that both the Chamber of Commerce and the press will urge on the Go-, vernmenfc the importance of obtaining a 16knot service in the Pacific in the next contract. This would bring us within 29 days of London, and I contend it can easily be done. — I am, etc., John Milne, January 17th, 1835.

idriatic . . . rerrnanic . . . leitic topublic ... ( days 1 9 8 8 9 hour! 1 12 21