Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald
and General Advertiser (Qld), Tuesday 21 January 1862, page 4
Rockhampton (from the Rockhampton
Bulletin). Mails to Port Denison
We are
given to understand that a large and important mail for Port Denison is now
lying in the Rockhampton Post-office, which has been accumulating for seven
weeks, and there is no immediate prospect of a means of conveyance offering. It
appears that Messrs. Hutchinson., Hunter, and Co., who held a monthly mail contract
for six months, decline to renew the contract at the same terms, chiefly because
of the exorbitant charge for pilotage, amounting to £10 per trip, or £120 per
annum. (This charge is certainly most exorbitant for a ketch, and is almost
prohibitory to a small coasting trade.) The Postmaster-General is certainly culpable
in thus permitting a contract to expire without making provision for the future.
If the subsidy previously given be found insufficient, it should be augmented as
we take it to be a short-sighted policy to be parsimonious in postal arrangements
with the new and remote settlements of the colony. Mr. Prior, when in Rockhampton,
left instructions with Messrs Haynes, Brown & Co., to forward the mail by
their first opportunity.
