The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-06 00:00:00

POSTAL COMMUNICATION WITII

AUSTRALIA.

The recent news from Australia is not of very
great public interest, but the time which it has
required to bring it to England is a very serious
consideration. The last date from Sidney is to
the 10th of June. No less a period than a hun-
dred days has been occupied in the transit of
the preceding mail. Now, it has been proved—
if we remember aright the exact figures—that 45
days are an ample allowance for the voyage be-
tween England and her antipodean colonies. Very
great exertions were made during the sessions to
arrive at a settlement of this vexed question with
the official personages whose duty it is to take
charge of such matters. After many questions
asked and many dilatory answers given, we are at
length informed that a very excellent scheme had
been perfected, as a consequence of which our com-
munications with Australia were to be put on the
most satisfactory footing. This may be so, and no
doubt as yet there has been no time for testing the
value of the new project ; but see the conse-
quences of the intermediate neglect. The Bent,
which is the name or the last arrival, brought
83,000 ounces of gold in freight, besides a quan-
tity in private hands, and this great rum has
for all this time been tossed about on the waves
without profit to anybody. Just the same thing
may be said of the passages of previous ships.
The direct loss, however, in the shape of interest
may be considered but a slight matter in compari-
• sou with the derangement of mercantile operations
. which has followed upon the absurd and unneces-
,sary delay in our communications. Buyers and
sellers have been equally put to inconvenience.
From the delay of remittances they have been
hardly pressed to meet engagements which they had
•contracted under the most legitimate expectation
that they should be able to satisfy them at matu-
rity. There was no kind of necessity for all this. As
soon as the peace was concluded it was perfectly
within the competence of the authorities to orga-
nise a temporary system of communication, which
would have naturally terminated when the arrange-
ments for a more permanent service between the
two countries had been completed. At the present
moment our docks are gorged with steam-ships,
which might easily have been called into requisi-
tion to satisfy a passing necessity. Had this been
done, the injury inflicted upon commerce while the
circumlocution-office was weighing and debating
the niceties of a perfect plain, and halting between
idle perplexities, might have been spared. Whether
the communication shall be by way of Diego Garcia
or the Mauritius is, of course, a point which may
become of very considerable importance when we
are so far advanced in our system of postal commu-
nication with Australia as to be justified in taking
hours and minutes into account. Meanwhile we
are losing weeks and months, and defeating the
best calculations of commercial men, by our re-
missness and errors. The whole history of the pos-
tal arrangements, or rather want of arrangements,
between England and Australia has been one of the
most discreditable chapters in the history of the
Post-office in our own time. No doubt the most
admirable excuses can be devised, but we heartily
agree with a favourite maxim of the late Duke of
Wellington, that persons who are good at excuses
are seldom good at anything else.
There is, we presume, a reasonable expectation
that this abominable nuisance is soon to be brought
to a conclusion. The Australian colonists, and as
many of our merchants as are engaged in Austra-
lian transactions, have been deeply aggrieved, and
have suffered heavy losses in consequence of the
dilatoriness and incapacity of our official men. On
no point of administration has the great art of doing
nothing been carried to a higher point of perfection
than in our postal communications with Australia,
since Australia has risen into importance. While
we are neglecting so obvious and primary a duty
our transatlantic friends are busy with a project
for bringing London and New York into electric
union. Soundings have been taken across the
Atlantic, and the cable is ready. In a brief space
London and New York will be able to communi-
cate in a period of time so small as to be inappre-
ciable. London and Sydney continue apart—if we
measure in time—by 100 days.—Times.