Queenslander
(Brisbane) Saturday 7 February 1885, page 206
The Mail Service of the Tate Tin
Mines.
H. KRACKE. Tate Tin Mines, 12th
January.
SIR,
—Ever since the mail has been run between Thornborough and Georgetown, via the
Tate tin mines, it has always been a humbug, because the mail has hardly ever arrived
in proper time, and sometimes there has been no mail for a month. The
inconvenience is easy to imagine where there is a population of about ninety
persons. I would say nothing at all if we had any other communication with any
other part of the world, but we have to depend entirely on this line of mail.
The Tate tin mines are going ahead rapidly; about 250 tons of tin was got last
season, and no doubt it will be the richest stream tin field in Queensland, if
it is not so already. This mail was run long before the Tate tin mines were
opened; it was then only for the convenience of the two or three stations, and
why should we not have a mail now? The principal blame attaches to the
contractor, Mr. Robinson, of Georgetown, for not having fulfilled the contract.
We now are already over two months —since the 7th of November, 1884—without a
single mail again. The cause of stopping this mail line is that Mr. Robinson,
the contractor, sent a telegram down to the Postmaster-General in Brisbane to
the effect that it would be impossible to run the mail any longer owing to the
country being in such a bad state for want of rain. But, as luck happened, we
soon had heavy showers of rain which made the grass grow in a very short time,
and a telegram was sent at once from the receiving officer at Tate tin mines to
the Undersecretary. General Post Office, which stated that there was no reason
whatever to delay the mail as there was plenty of grass and water everywhere.
The country was certainly for a few months in a bad state, but not so bad that
the mail could not be run, for packhorses came up loaded from Port Douglas all
through the dry season. But the stoppage is not to be wondered at when a
contractor takes a contract at such a low figure that he cannot afford to give
his horse a feed of corn after a day's journey of about fifty miles. These are
the only reasons why the mail could not be run; it is not the bad state of the
country. The contractor had no right whatever to throw up the contract simply
because it would not pay him to carry it out. But why does the Government allow
this? A few weeks after Mr. Robinson gave up the mail contract tenders were
called for a special mail, but none were accepted. The reason why I do not
know. Several telegrams were sent down, and also a petition to the
Postmaster-General from all the inhabitants of the Tate tin mines, but not even
an acknowledgment was received.
