SAN FRANCISCO MAIL SERVICE.
43
E.—No. 2,
D. H. M. D. H. M. Auckland to Honolulu ... ... 15 18 0 Port Chalmers to Auckland ... 4 15 0 Honolulu to Auckland ... ... 14 15 0 Auckland to Honolulu ... ... 16 2 0 Auckland to Sydney ... ... 5 2 30 Honolulu to San Francisco ... 8 12 0 Sydney to Auckland ... ... 5 13 30 San Francisco to Honolulu ... 720 0 Auckland to Honolulu ... ... 15 11 30 Honolulu to Auckland ... ... 15 16 0 Honolulu to Auckland ..... ... 14 1 0 Auckland to Port Chalmers, present Auckland to Sydney ... .... 4 12 30 voyage ... ... ... 3 18 0 Sydney to Auckland .... .... 5 16 0 Auckland to Honolulu ... ... 16 9 0 . Honolulu to Auckland ... ... 14 830 288 16 0 Auckland to Port Chalmers ... 323 0 Distance run, 72,730 miles, or equal to an average of 10| miles per hour.
No. 37. The Hon. J. Vogel to Messrs. Webb and Holladay. Gentlemen,— General Post Office, Wellington, New Zealand, 6th July, 1872. I have the honor to express to you the strong disapproval of the Government of New Zealand of the manner in which the Californian Mail Service is being performed. It appears to me that you have departed from the terms of your contract little by little, until you consider yourselves at liberty to pursue, with reference to the working of the service, just that course which satisfies your own convenience. For example, the mails from Great Britain, which reached San Francisco on the 21st May, were not forwarded thence until the 24th, owing to your not having ready a vessel to proceed with them. Tet you did not consider it necessary that you should inform me of the delay, or make any explanation respecting its cause. For the service between San Francisco and Honolulu, you have been using just such boats as it has suited you to use, and again, you have not offered to this Government any explanation. That those boats would not have been approved of by tho Government, I conclude alike from the information given by the Mail Agents and from opinions published in San Francisco papers. As to the latter, I must suppose them to be well-founded, as I presume that, if they were not so, the libel law would be appealed to on your behalf. Apart from such opinions, the experience had of the " Mahonga" proves her to be not fit for the service which you have contracted to perform. Tou are continuing to make " connections" at Honolulu, instead of running boats through between San Francisco and New Zealand, and we have not yet received trustworthy information of the " Dacota" having left New Tork to take her place on the line. The Government of New Zealand, as you know, have made to you many concessions to aid you in overcoming difficulties incidental to tho establishment of an Ocean Mail Service; but you have steadily gone beyond our concessions, without informing us either that you desired so to act, or had so acted. All such actions and omissions must now cease; and I desire that you will understand and accept, in its fullest significance, my notification to you that the Government consider the time has come for holding you strictly to the terms of your contract. In a conversation with you in Melbourne, when you agreed to reduce to £46,000 the sum receivable for the service, pending the completion of the agreement with the A.S.N. Co., I stated that it was my intention not to recommend the Government to enforce against you the penalties to which you had rendered Yourselves liable by breaches of your contract committed up to that time. Since our conversation many provisions of the contract have been broken, and the effect of those breaches have been most irritating and serious. I desire therefore that you will not suppose that by giving you the written notification, " That the Government consider the time has come for holding you strictly to the terms of your contract," I am waiving, or at all weakening, any rights we have under the contract to demand penalties for breaches committed between the date of our conversation and that borne by this letter. I regret to say that the " Nevada," —in consequence, probably, of being overworked, because you have failed to supply a third suitable boat —is now in such a condition as to make repairs absolutely necessary. I notify to you that she will not, unless she has been meanwhile thoroughly repaired, be permitted to carry passengers from New Zealand after the voyage which she has just commenced. lam content to believe that you will readily cause such a repair to be undertaken. But as the matter is one of great importance, I think it right to inform you that the Mail Agent is authorised, should the necessity unfortunately arise, to protest against your despatching the " Nevada" on another voyage, unless she shall have been thoroughly repaired. I have, &e.| W. H. Webb, Esq., and Julius Vogel. Ben. Holladay, Esq., &c, &c.
No. 38. The Hon. J. Vogel to Messrs. Webb and Holladay. Gentlemen, — General Post Office, Wellington, New Zealand, 6th July, 1872. I have the honor to forward to you herewith copy of correspondence between the Government of Queensland and the Government of New Zealand ; and also, copy of a letter from the Hon. the Colonial Secretary to the Hon. the Chief Secretary of Victoria, and of an enclosure thereto. 12
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