An Imperial Mail Service.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 8, 1 June 1907, Page 283

An Imperial Mail Service.

Of the proposals made by Sir Joseph Ward at the Imperial Conference, it is safe to saythat they repaired a situation somewhat damaged by the loss of preferential trade. During the discussion which ensued with something like enthusiasm, two of the subjects of those proposals stood out with particular prominence. They were a fast mail service and cheap cables. To the mercantile community the latter commends itself on the ground that all business is initiated by cable, the mails being used only for the purpose of confirmation. From this point of view a fast service, such as proposed by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, would not be worth its cost. This is the narrow point of view which regards mails and nothing else. The Imperial point of view considers that there are things just as valuable as mails, on board mail steamers, if not far more so ; things pertaining to trade in the highest sense of the word, and things touching the various interests of £he Empire in peace and war, all requiring Certainty and security of rapid despatch. From the Imperial point of view, the holders of which desire above all things to bind the Empire closer together, the advantages are worth all the cost whatever it may be : and those who think Imperially have made up their minds that, however great, that cost must be found by this country out of its annual surplus of three-quarters of a million. The twenty days fast service is one of those things which for Im-

perial reasons we must have. The word "impossible," is not in any vocabulary applicable to it, because the progress of marine engineering has established such services already, and every day tends to make improvements in the direction of both speed and cheapness. What to-day costs a sovereign will in a few years cost no more than a few shillings ; especially if the sovereign be expended now to help the development. In the meantime it will be realised that men are not content to learn everything about each other on paper. They will insist upon seeing their neighbours, and studying their customs desires, opinions, characters, and wants at first hand. The conference of Statesmen just concluded has shown the immense benefit of personal relations. In like manner, a fast steam-boat service must prove the great value of personal intercourse as a bond of Imperial union. Moreover, speed is becoming daily more and more the pivot of human affairs. Why should it be excluded from a service which was from the first intended to annihilate distance ?