The Express.
London, England, 1862-04-22 00:00:00

OUR OCEAN MAIL SERVICE.

The government have given a twelvemonth's
notice to the Royal rail Company fur the termina- ,
tion of their contract for the conveyance of the
mails, and the company are already talking about
the sale of their fleet The government have also
advertised for competing tenders for conveying the ,
mails between Aden and Bombay. The Peninsular
and Oriental Company's mail contracts have ex-
pired for some time past, and have not been re-
newed by the government. It is evident that the
question of ocean wail subsidies is about to be
seriously considered. The North Atlantic and
West Cosat of Africa Companies' mail contracts
expire
in 1 and the South Pacific Company's
oontrais at an end in 1885. The ocean mail
subsidies amount to nearly 850,0001. a year, to-
wards which 146,0001. is subscribed by our depen-
dencies, and the ocean postage amounts to about I
320,0001. Daring the last 20 years the government
have lost 10 millions sterling by the ocean mail
steam-packet companies. Notwithstanding that we
lose nearly half-a-million of money every year by
subsidies, our foreign mail packet system m
most inadequate for all the wants of govern-
ment or commerce. Thus, we have no
mail packet communication between Southern
and Africa, between the south-
eastern and north-eastern coast of China, between
China and Japan, and between Panama and British
Columbia. We want also another mail communi-
cation with Brazil and Ls Plata, and with Australia
across the Southall: Pacific, to watch the French
doings in the latter quarter, and to effect a more
rapid communication with our gold colonies of New
Zealand and Australia. Oat of 34,0001., which we
pay for the Cape of Good Hope mail contract, the
Cape colony only pays us 8,0001. Our In lie, Chins,
and Australasian contracts cost nearly 400,0001., and
we only get from the India and Australian govern-
ments 138,000/. Our North American service costa us
nearly 200,0001., to which Canada subscribes
nothing. To be sure she runs a line of mail
packets, but a great portion of her mails are sent
by the mother country's faster packets. The United
States pays not one farthing towards our enormous
subsidies. The government of that country simply
insists upon taking the carrying of about one-third
of the transatlantic mails away from us, and
giving them to foreign ships to carry, handing
over to the owners of such ships the post-
age. The ocean mail subsidies have created
a monopoly on all the mail lines except the
North Atlantic one. This line being short,
an enormous capital is not necessary to establish
competition. The North Atlantic subsidised
mail steamers have attained a higher speed,
and passengers are conveyed by them for lower
fares, than on the other two great subsi-
dised steam packet lines. The average speed of
Cunard's steamers on the western passage is 11}
knots ; on the trunk line, to and from St.
Thomas, it is 10 knots • and on the Calcutta
line, only 91 knots. The passenger fares by
Cunard's packets are 40s. per head a day • on the
St. Thomas trunk line, 80s. per head ; and on the
Bombay line, 655. per head.
The payment of enormous mail subsidies beyond
what the foreign postage realised was originally
intended to be temporary, and was for the purpose
of fairly starting steam-packet companies. Are
ocean mail packets necessarily unprofitable without
government aid of such a magnitude as to be out of
all proportion to the obvious value which the govern-
ment receives for such aid 1 True, it is said that
the country is amply repaid for subsidies by
the increase of foreign and colonial commerce, and
by the political advantages which the government
derives from a regular and rapid mail packet com-
munication. But cannot these advantages be ob-
tained without such an enormous expense to the
country 1 The steam-packet shareholders' divi-
dends are a constant quantity, no matter how the
traffic increases, and contractors for building, re-
pairing, coaling, and victualling mail packets, get
enormously rich. Could not the government, with-
out much trouble and expense, ascertain, by
moving for returns, what the revenue and expendi-
, ture of a mail steam line ought to be, and regulate
subsidies accordingly ? Perhaps it would be
found that the present subsidies would be suffi-
cient for the extension of the ocean mail-packet
I service to almost double its present area.