The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-08 00:00:00

THE SUN.

FRIDAY. OCTOBER 8, 1858.

The Australian Mail Service is every year be-
coming a question of more and more importance,
both to the colony and to the mother country. It
has hitherto been so mismanaged, so slow, so un-
certain, and so exclusively in one direction, that the
grievance has grown at last to a magnitude quite
intolerable. As such, as a positive and un-
deniable impediment to the interests of our-
selves and our antipodes, the old contract
was summarily got rid of by the new
Colonial Minister, Secretary Sir BuLwER LYT-
TON, almost upon the morrow of his instal-
ment in office as the ruler of our sixty vast and
scattered possessions. So far so good. A mon-
strous annoyance, to call it by its mildest phrase,
was removed—and it was of course to be followed
by something in every way, it was to be hoped,
compensative and consolatory. There was, at any
rate, this advantage gained—that we had a " clear
stage "—and now only wanted there should "no
favour " in what was to follow.
An alternate fortnightly mail was spoken of
as probably the future arrangement. The Austra-
lian Mail, in other words, it was hoped would
henceforth regularly quit the shores of England
on alternate fortnights—now going eastwards, via
Suez ; now westwards, via Panama. Both sides of
the great Antarctic Continent were to derive
benefit, turn by turn, from this new and rational
system of organization.
According to the terms of the new Government
tender some of those hopes threaten to be "dashed"
rather unexpectedly. A careful analysis of this
tender will be found in another column—an analy-
sis given by one well capable of making it—by the
very man, in fact, who has already boldly main-
tained the practicability of (conveying the mails to
or fro between London and Melbourne, via Mar-
seilles, in forty-one days and a-half ! Mr. EDWARD
WILSON, reverting for a moment to this his very
startling estimate of time and distance, says as
truly as frankly, " My calculation has never been
challenged." No wonder that, having clearly made
it out by his own cautious and rational estimate,
that scarcely more than a month and a-half need
be consumed in traversing this distance of 10,625
miles, extending by way of Suez, from London to
Melbourne—no wonder, we say, that any one,
seeing the matter clearly and vividly in this light,
should recoil from the notion of witnessing that
same route travelled over in 55 days with
mingled feelings of dismay and indignation.
Mr. WILSON apparently can hardly believe
the evidence of his senses when he reads that, really
and truly, fifty-five days are to be allowed as the
margin, according to the terms of the new contract
—a contract, moreover, that is to hold good for a
period of seven years' duration. His simple com-
ment upon the prospect before us is almost as de-
spairing in tone as it is unconsciously whimsical in
the manner of its utterance. " Six days and a-
half," says he, " too long now : perhaps twice six
days and a-half by the end of the seven years." A
delightful calculation truly—yet one, however
extravagant it may seem, that we should endea-
vour to guard agasinst as a mere possibility by every
kind of precautionary measure that could be con-
trived.

As to the particular portion of Mr. WILSON'S
argument, in which he depreciates the value of the
route via Panama—that we cannot for an instant
accept as in any way convincing. As there are two
sides proverbially to every question, so manifestly
there are two sides to this Antarctic Continent of
Australasia—a fact that seems to be only half re-
cognised by Mr. WILSON, and even that only occa-
sionally. Granted that the route to Melbourne
from London is more than 2,000 miles farther by
way of Panama than by way of Suez—granted that
the former route to Sydney is over a thousand miles
further, the route to Adelaide more than 2,000 miles,
and still more even to Tasmania—yet the establish-
ment of this regular mail communication would
be so far manifestly advantageous that it would
affect, beneficially, periodically, and at regular in-
tervals, the mercantile enterprise of the world in
the Atlantic and Pacific—securing a systematic
intercourse between this country and some of its
most valuable possessions: northwards with British
Columbia, southwards with one whole moiety of
Australia, eventually with China, with India, and
the Eastern Archipelago. Because the route via
Suez is so much nearer than that of Panama, we
cannot therefore agree with Mr. WILSON that the