THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Véritè sans peur.” Wanganui, January 22, 1863.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 327, 22 January 1863, Page 2

THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Véritè sans peur.” Wanganui, January 22, 1863.

The mania, for subsidising postal steamers seems to have now reached its height; at least, it is difficult to believe that the New Zealand colonists, heavily burdened in connection with the Maories, can submit to have their heads thrust much deeper under water in order to provide fortunes for the happy owners of Austral steamers. That there is a great desire on the part of merchants and others to get their letters from ail places beyond seas with as great speed as possible is natural and right. Rapid postal communication gives them a command of markets, and an additional command of money, which greatly facilitate commercial operations, and make their profits larger and more certain. But whether the community in general is greatly benefited by such arrangements is doubtful. Asa matter of feeling, it is desirable that colonists should receive the letters of their home friends at as early a date as possible ; but if it were put to them whether they would pay a 50 per cent, additional postage, or receive their letters three or four days later, it is to be feared that silver would be preferred to sentiment, and that no undue acceleration would be given to the postal despatches. If, indeed, it could be shown that additional celerity of communication enabled our merchants to sell their sugar at |d, or their tea at Id per lb. cheaper, there would be less objection to give to the agents by whom the saving was effected a handsome percentage on it; but there is no reason for believing that the large subsidies to our mail steamers effect any such saving. It is the importers of goods that receive the substantial benefit, if any good is done at all by these subsidies. In the abstract there can be no objection to an accelerated postal service ; quite the contrary. The nearer places can be brought together by means of letters, the greater benefit are they likely to derive from their mutual intercourse. But there is, in practice, a possibility of paying too much for the benefit; and it is not a matter of doubt that our Government has reached this point where the profit is swallowed up by the expence, if it has not overstepped it. New South Wales people, accustomed to the heavy subsidies paid to the Suez line —not less than 20s a mile—are yet astonished at the votes of our legislature for intercolonial postal communication. These amounted last session to .£36,000, besides other £30,000 for the Panama route if it should be established or about 15s for each individual in the islands. There seems, indeed, to be some difficulty in respect to the establishment of a Panama line, in which case £30,000 less will be expended ; but that is a route which above all others would benefit New Zealand, and which, even at such a large expenditure, it would be desirable to see established. The liberal feelings of the legislature in respect to postal communication seem to be intensified in the Executive. They are' not liberal, but lavish, in their expenditure on this object. On Monday we received irom Auckland the Gazette of the 30th December, in which is printed the agx*eement between Mr. Crosbie Ward and a Melbourne firm for the conveyance of the Monthly Mails between Melbourne and Dunedin, leaving Melbourne not later than the 11th, and Dunedin than the 18th, of each month, so that the Otago people can answer their letters. If the mail do not arrive in Melbourne by the 11th, it is sent on by another vessel a week later. In the financial year 1861-2 che whole amount of the subsidies for inter-provincial and inter-colonial communication paid by the General Government w r as £ 13,000. At present Auckland has a steamer running to and from Sydney for a payment of £6OOO a year, if we mistake not. With all these precedents to go upon, if he had no other means of calculation, Mr. Ward has agreed to give £13,000 a year to the owners of the AI dingo, for the service already mentioned. All the terms of the contract are exceedingly favourable to the owners of the vessel—quite in accordance with this little presentation of exactly double what at most they were entitled to ; and far more than double what the service might have been contracted for, considering the paying trade in goods and passengers between Melbourne and Otago. At the same rate the H'onga Wonga should receive £I3OO .instead of £SOO a year for bringing the English mails from Wellington to Wanganui But New Zealand being prosperous, in spite of all

her internal tronbles, is desirous of showing that prosperity to the world, in the same way as a rich country bumpkin flourishes his purse during his first season in London, and gives all that is asked, if not something more. When will our public men take as conscientious a care of the public purse and the public interests as they do of their own 1