THE AUSTRALIAN MAIL SERVICE.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 111, 12 November 1858, Page 3

THE AUSTRALIAN MAIL SERVICE.

( From the Home JS ren:s, August ) G.) The present state of the Australian Postal Question, as it is now entitled to be called from the protracted deliberations bestowed upon it, may be pretty clearly collected from the particulars we have put together concerning it in another column. It seems, if some authorities are to believed, that the notion of an alternate service by the Suez and Panama routes has been abandoned by Government, yet, that notwithstanding that determination, a number of gentlemen, influentially connected with Moreton Bay, New South VVales, and New Zealand, have prepared a memorial to the Colonial Secretary, setting forth the importance and necessity of establishing an alternate communication via Panama, for the use of the colonies in which they are directly interested. The arguments, for whatever they are worth on both sides, are fairly presented in our current number ; but we apprehend that choice of routes, important as the consideration is, yield in immediate interest to the certain establishment of some one route by which the communication with our colonies may be at all events kept up with regularity, if not with all the despatch or convenience that could be desired. It is idle to discuss two routes before we have got one; or to insist on the merits of Panama, about which there is no doubt at all. The fault of our Government is, not that it hesitates in establishing separate routes to each of the colonies, but that it delays in establishing a single route to any. Certainty, regularity, and despatch by any one route is the desideratum. According to existing appearances we are as far from the attainment of this end as ever, in spite of the plcasent promises of the new Secretary. The Colonial-office and the Admiralty cannot agree. Australia, therefore, must wait.'ln the meanwhile trade suffer, emigration checks its eager flow, and a thousand interests, public and private, are kept in abeyance. Our only hope rests on the absolute necessity of doing something, and doing it soon. It is one of the many golden opportunities of Lord Derby's Administration ; and if Ministers bs not disposed to take advautnge of it for the sake of the colonies, they will, probably, see the wisdom of doing so for their own.