THE AUSTRALIAN MAIL SERVICE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2423, 10 November 1892, Page 3

THE AUSTRALIAN MAIL SERVICE.

Sir George Dibba has written a letter to Mr A. R. Spreckles, of San Francisco, one of the contractors for the AustralianArnerican mail service, of which the substance is annexed. The letter was received by the steamship Alameda, which arrrived at San Francisco on September 29th —“ The people here have just learned of the reduction made in the mail jjrate for English letters by the Imperial Government, and the ship had barely anchored before I was set upon by the Press of the voyage and the prospect of the service being continued under the altered conditions. I told them frankly my views, of which you have already had an outline, that the route across the Pacific should become a favourite one, and it should bo the quickest for a mail service to England, but that I feared the supineness of your Government would lead to the loss of the line and of its transfer to the Canadians, who bid fair to become the successful rivals on the Pacific to the American Hag. The colonies cannot understand why your people, with all their proverbial shrewdness are so blind to the all important question of dollars in this particular branch of your trade, and they will not submit to contribute solely to maintain a line for the benefit so largely of Americans, On the other hand, Canada, with its five millions of people, is determined to secure trade for its. railway, and the different methods adopted by that colony, with the all, powerful influence of the Canadian Pacific Railroad Company at its back, will clinch the business and secure the line to Vancouver, while the usually ’cute Yankee is asleep, or the subject becomes lost in the meshes of Parliamentary logrolling on the part of your statesmen. Briefly, if the Australian and San Francisco line is to be preserved, and its large advantages are to accrue to America, your Government .will require to quicken its movements as compared with the past, and make a liberal subsidy to sustain it. Having done this it should then frankly ask the Australian colonies to bear their share.” All the San Francisco papers have articles earnestly arguing in favour of the United States acceding to the reasonable demands of the colonies that the Government should bear a fair share of the burden of this mail service.