Penny Postage With Australia.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 18, 1 May 1902, Page 18

Penny Postage With Australia.

In return for Bonie concessions of vaguely disclosed extent in connection with the new Pacific cable, these concessions being made by New Zealand, the Federal Government has consented to receive New Zealand letters bearing a penny stamp, and distribute them without the surcharge of one penny hitherto imposed. Practically this gives New Zealand a penny post with Australia, but in one

direction only. The Federal Government has not yet screwed its courage up to the point of granting a universal penny post. Letters, therefore, from Australia will be charged the old rate, which means as far as New Zealand is concerned that while a writer here may send a letter to Australia for one penny, the correspondent there must pay twopence for the privilege of sending a reply. Not that the Commonwealth stands alone in this respeot, though we should have thought one of the firßt directions in which the newly born national aspiration would have sought expression would be the provision of a pubiio boon so obviously just. The Federal Postmaster-General demurs on the ground of finance, and in the ordinary official mind such an objection is quite natural. No doubt the immense distances whioh mails must be carried in Australia deter the authorities from suggesting a penny poßt, but they should look at the example of New Zealand, where, though the distances are not so great, the natural obstacles are many, while the population to be served is infinitely smaller. There is n 0 hamlet, however secluded, in New Zealand, which has not at all events a weekly poet, and in many instances the mails are carried in spite of difficulties that would daunt any but the most intrepid traveller. And if under the comparative circumstances a nation of four millions of people cannot supply itself with the conveniences possessed by one of much less than a million, the contrast is not creditable to Australian public spirit.