New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-07-07
THE CALIFORNIA MAILS.

Ink GALAFOhNIA
Com. Vanderbilt appears once more in print as
the champion of his course in refusing to carry the
Mill to the Pacific States and Territory in bis last
steamer He states that the gross amount Of post
ages on Mail matter carried to California last year
was $500, 900. DE was offered these hostages to
carry Mail twice month each way this year (or
otherwise as his convenience should suggest), and
refused it. He had q legal right so to do. He
proposed instead to carry the Pacific Mails for
S3O0,O00 per annum for the ocean part OF the
service, leaving the Government to pay an add.
tional sum for getting the Mails over the Isthmus
This the Department declined on its side, though
(says Mr.. W the charge was little more per tun
than he asks and receives for carrying fast Express
matter. He then made further ofer-to carry
the letters for the postage charged thereon aud oil
printed matter for % cents per pound. which he
SAYS sis the minimum charge for transporting
merchandise by fast express from New-York to
90 San Francisco" This, too, WA declined; 30
the Mail was stopped.
Was this last proposition Of the Commodore q
reasonable one He charges any one who brings
him few pounds of fast express freight $500 per
tun for carrying it, and he proposes to charge the
Government for carrying some thirty turs Of Mails
every trip he makes-not merely the $500 per tun
which he charges to any and every one who brings
him capIiciOus driblets of fast express freght-but
that price for the printed part of the Mails, ard a
much higher one for the letters That does not
strike us as either liberal or fair.
But, if Dir. Vanderbilt sees fit to garry the Mails
as Mails only on terms which the Government
could not or would not accept, we insist that he
ought not TO have obstrueted their transportation
by others. He is very rich and powerful but he is
not above pIofting By the good will of the people
of California and Oregon with those on this side
who have business relations herewith. He has
made considerable share Of bis vast wealth out Of
those people; and he has no moral right to be 10
sensible to the fact that stoppage of their Mails
must subject them to much perpisxity and loss,
which they have done nothing to deserve. So
forcibe does this consideration appear to as that,
had we stood in the COmmodore's shoes, We should
have carried one or two Mails for nothing rather
than have them fail utterly, believing that we
should profit in the long run by so doing. But
the Commodore not only refused to carry the Mails
on such terms as the Government felt itself at
liberty to ofer-he forbade their transportation by
the Express Companies, thou. b he would thereby
have made several thousand dollars. Tuns Of news
papers and periodicals were ready to go by Ex-
press outside of the Mails; but Com. Vanderbilt!
forbade their transportation. He may have
right to do this; but we doubt it. AS common
carrier, he ought to be obliged to carry such
freight as is offered, provided his price is paid and
the transportation is neither extra hazardous nor
unlawful.
Let us not forget that one formidable obstacle
to the due and regular transportation Of the Mails
in this case is the atIociOus FraDking Privilege.
Tuns of lranked documents and books are ready
to be sent to the Pacific Slope, and more will be
prepared so fast as possible. Dry up the fountain
of this abuse-stop printing books and documents
to give away, sending them to favored individuals
at the expense Of the public-and the Mails
may be carried over land in shorter time than BY
the Isttmus, and be carried every day instead Of
o.ce fortnight Now letter starts from interior
Kansas or Minnesota, il week reaching this
City, waits here ten days for steamer, and is
then Inrtt weeks OF moro IN TehCniHR odu rThu-
cisco, whence it must often be sent two or three
hundred miles eastward to it's destination; when
it might have started directly westward the day
after it was mailed, and been delivered at
Placeyille, San Juan, or Mokelumne Hill within
fifteen or eighteen days. Ii is wrong to overload
and obstruct the mails BY frapked matter-wrong
to send six or seven thousand miles around over
peIlous seas and across foreign state, when the
direct route is but fifteen to twenty-five hundred
wrong to build and support railroads through for
eign countries rather than through our own.
Had Franking been stopped and the Mails sent IL
fe1ibly across our own country for the last ten
years, the schedule time between st. Louis and
San Francisco would have been brought within fif-
teen days ere this the intervening region thor
obghIy explored and half civilized, and the Pacific
Railroad constructed some hundreds Of mites from
either end. The past is past; but shall its mis-
takes be- forever persisted inl