THE DIRECT SERVICS TO SYDNEY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 104, 6 May 1903, Page 4

THE DIRECT SERVICS TO SYDNEY.

10 THE EDITOR. Sib, —I notice in your Monday's Isßue that the Union Steam Ship Company do not see their way to establishing a direct service with Sydney. Personally, I never thought they would, at any rate, not at present. As, of course, we are all aware, the produce baa to go by their boats, so they get the coastal freights as well as the freight from final port of shipment. Had the Huddart Parker boats been running on. jhiw coast they would probably have replied in a different strain, and have tried to assist in creating a trade instead of waiting till it is all ready made for them. However, if they will not-, could not overtures be made to some other company to put on a boat for the round trip, with a guarantee for, say, twelve months from lccal merchants that all produce from the south to here, as well as to and from Sydney, should go by that boat only. This might induce . some company to step in and break up the monopoly, under which the whole district has suffered for so long; as, for instance, for years no concessions are' ever made to passengers going north, even at such times as •very other place is getting the advantages of reduced fares. It is all very ■well to say thty hava studied the interests of tbe p?rt, yes, they certainly have, because it paid them so to do; if it had not piid we should have heard about it long ago. then the statement that they could not tike up the service because it costs .£ISOO a month to run the Upolo; surely they do not want to bluff us by that, es if she was running the round trip her freight, etc., from "coastal ports would be helping to earn that. Then why tiy to saddle the run to Sydney atd back with the cost of running he;e for a m;nth. No, it is eimply this: so long as they hold tbe monopoly, so loug will they lun to sur themselves. As a proof that it is oppo sition that is wanted, one has only to compare the fares trom Wellington to Lytteltcn wit'a those to Mas&k«u to sea how the e.it jumps.—l am, etc., Anti-Moncpoii".