THE Wairarapa Mercury SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1867. THE LATE POSTAL CONFERENCE.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 16, 20 April 1867, Page 2

THE Wairarapa Mercury SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1867. THE LATE POSTAL CONFERENCE.

A Conference of delegates from the Governments of New Zealand, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania was held at Melbourne last month, and continued in session from the 4th to the 20th ult. Its object was to consider the question of postal communication between Great Britain and Australasia. The government of New Zealand was ably represented by Mr John Hall and Mr Crosbie Ward, the first being Postmaster-Gene-ral of the colony, and the other the Agent of the Government of New Zealand. The other colonies were equally as well represented. There are three, at present, postal routes between Australia and England, each of which has its admirers and supporters; as none of them would agree to throw their present favorite route overboard, the conference came to the sagacious conclusion to maintain the whole three, and to invite the Imperial Government to bear half the expense. When, however, it is borne in mind that this arrangement will involve Great Britain in an additional contribution of upwards of £130,000 per annum, we do not think that the Imperial Government will view the matter in quite so favorable a light as the Conference appear to imagine. It is madness in our opinion to suppose that the Imperial Government will assent to such a proposition. Its present contribution to the Australian mail service is about £69,000. If the Imperial Government ns well as the Australasian Governments, had been represented in the Conference, it is quite evident that no such arrangement would have been arrived at. Moreover the facts and arguments by which the delegates try to persuade the Imperial Government to fall in with the .arrangement, are the very facts and arguments which it might use in respectfully declining to accede to the proposal. They inform the Queen that the value of the imports of the six colonies, in 1865, amounted to thirty-five millions ■sterling, and that the value of their exports, for the same period, consisting principally of gold and wool, amounted to more than thirty millions. The Imperial Government, we may be quite sure, will congratulate the colonies on having attained such a high degree of prosperity as these facts exhibit; "but it is extremely doubtful whether it will consider that these facts go to prove that they are entitled to a contribution of £200,000 per annum, when one-third that sum would have sufficed, if the delegates had harmonized their discordant claims and interests by mutual compro-

raise and concession instead of endeavoring to do so by the magic aid of the Imperial Treasury. The Imperial Go* vernment may consider that the prosperous state of the colonies will well enable them to pay the cost of the three services themselves, and, adopting the tactics of the delegates, who rather than reject one, agreed to maintain the three, decline to support any of the three, and thus avoid making such on invidious distinction as that of paying a contribution to one route in preference to either of the other. No arrangement made ought to have involved any extra contribution from the Home Government, and indeed it is nonsense to talk of any arrangement having been made, until the party who is called upon to contribute onehalf of the cost has assented to it.

If each of the colonies represented in the Conference had not come to the conclusion to maintain the three routes they would not have come to any conclusion at all; nor would they have come to any conclusion as it was, had they resolved to support the three routes at their own expense instead of at the cost of Great Britain. They were unanimous upon one point, and it was this, — that the local claims of each colony should he maintained at the cost of the Imperial Treasury. If they had succeeded in reconciling the conflicting claims and interests of each colony without any considerable addition to its present burdens, and without calling upon the Imperial Government for a large increase in the contribution it now pays, they would have deserved all the praise they have received. But to our thinking they have left the matter in a worse state than they found it, and that, so far as New Zealand is concerned, is bad enough in all conscience. Speaking in round numbers, the population of New Zealand is one-half that of New South Wales, and one-third that of Victoria. The imports and exports of the three colonies hear much the same relative proportions to each other; yet New South Wales contributes one-third less, and Victoria two-thirds less than New Zealand to the mail services between Australasia and Great Britain. The present amount contributed by each of these colonies, if population, and imports and exports are to be our guide, ought therefore to be reversed. Victoria ought to contribute twice as much as New South Wales, and New South Wales twice as much as New Zealand. Instead of this being the case, New Zealand at present, as we have said, contributes two-thirds more than Victoria, and one-third more than New South Wales, to the cost of the postal service. Under the proposed arrangement £150,000 is to he contributed by the three colonies, or £50,000 each, per annum. This would be a great improvement on the existing system; but if the contribution of each colony were determined by the population and wealth of each, instead of £50,000, Victoria would contribute £75,000; and New Zealand, instead of £50,000, would have to contribute only £25,000. Tins, every unprejudiced person will admit, is quite as much as she can afford to contribute under existing circumstances, though with the Panama mail contract hanging like a mill stone round her neck, she may think herself well off if £50,000 is in. future her maximum contribution to the mail service with Great Britain. Whether the late conference of delegates on the postal service will lead to conferences between delegates from the several Governments of the Australasian colonies on other questions in which they have a kindred interest, and prove to be the germ of a Federal Congress, out of which will grow a Federal Union, is a question of grave interest, but one which cannot now be decided. If more self-sacrifice, and self-reliance had been, exhibited than were exhibited we should have unhesitatingly decided the question at once in the affirmative. Conflicting interests will not be rendered less conflicting unless accompanied by mutual concessions, and these were not made by the delegates at the late postal conference It will be a common danger that will produce that common feeling which wilt render a Federal Union possible. That will not arise until England’s decline and fall is consummated by the voluntary abandonment first of her American and then of her Australian possessions.