The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-29 00:00:00

()UR OCEAN MAIL SER VICE.

Nearly a million sterling is paid by the Govern-
ment to our steam-packet companies for carrying
mails. To complete our mail packet service to
British Columbia, Japan, Northern China, and
Eastern Africa and Australia, would cost nearly
half a million more. The pressure of taxation will
render it difficult to get such an additional sum
granted. The truth is, that in a political view the
mail packets are not of the great importance they
were—the telegraph has supplanted them.
by
years ago the Government could not than the
packets. But now our ambassadors, consuls, and
admirals send home political information and notices
of the movements of foreign fleets by telegraph.
The packets, however, though no longer absolutely
necessary politically to the Government, are of
very great commercial importance in carrying
letters, and in enabling merchants to visit distant
markets. They have unquestionably caused a
vast increase of our foreign and colonial com-
merce. The time, however, has arrived for a re-
vision of our mail packet service, and when our
' colonies and foreign Governments should be
made to contribute to its support. In reviewing
the service can any rearrangement be made under
' which the aggregate amount of subsidies now
paid would prove sufficient for that extension of it
which British enterprise has rendered necessary
One of the greatest difficulties in connection with
the mail-packet service has always been its exten-
sion to A,nstralia, and the servico to that part is
still objectionable. It is only monthly—it does
not extend further north than Sydney. A mail is
55 days in witching New South Wales, when ac-
cording to the time taken for a mail to reach New
York, it ought to be only 45 days. Australian
mails are twice f.ranshipped on the voyage, and
the mail is sent by way of India, while the
gold colonies of Australia border on the
Pacific. The Peninsular and Oriental Company,
which alone carried the Australian mails with
anything like satisfaction, has twice thrown up the
contract, and it has never 11,,ien able to tempt Aus-
tralian passengers or gold on board its packets.
The West India packet service is the most expen-
sive we have, costing as it does 1250,000 a-year.
Commercially, the West India colonies are not
worth such a sum being bestowed on them. But
though the Royal Mail Company gets such a
large amount, it is, or was, the poorest of our
mail packet companies, partly from the wear
and tear of their ships, the poverty of the West
India Islands, and the perpetually troubled
state of Mexico, which prevented that development
of the trade of a rich country which would have
greatly benefited the company. The company's
prospects are, however, improving. The trade of
South Western and Central America has greatly
increased, owing to the Panama railway, and British
Columbia has sprung into importance, to the com-
pany's advantage. If the Australian mails were
sent by way of Panama, the Indian route, which
costs £135,000 a year, could be abandoned; the West
India subsidy need not be anything like so large as
it is, and a mail communication could be established
to British Columbia without any additional expense
to the country. The West India line would have
three great feeding branches, from Valparaiso, Aus-
tralia, and British Columbia to Panama, and the
Royal Mail Company would be one of the richest
mail packet companies. If the Australian
mails were sent by way of America, they
could be earried to Colon without any expense,
and they would reach their destination about ten
days quicker than at present. Besides this, New
Zealand and many of the island groups in the Pa-
cific now becoming of importance lie between Aus-
tralia and Panama, Western Australia would suffer
if the present mail route were done away with, but
that would not be of much consequence, and if the
Australian colonists wanted a steam packet com-
munication with India and China, they could esta-
blish it themselves.

Politically and commercially the development of
the resources of British Columbia, and the diversion
of Australian traffic through America would be of
immense importance. The Panama Railway is an
American enterprise, and is one of .the best paying
lines in the world. Already the line is overbur-
dened with traffic. If this were increased English
capital would be employed in opening up another
route from the Atlantic to the Pacific by making a
railroad between the Mosquito coast and the Nica-
ragua lake, about 60 miles in length, not much
longer than the Panama Railway ; and in digging
a shallow canal, about 12 miles in length, between
the lake and the Pacific. This scheme would no
doubt pay. The Australian, and the central and
north and south-western American traffic would
supply both the Nicaraguan and Panama routes.
The Pacific has not yet been bridged by steam, but
a line of steamers will shortly ply between San
Francisco and Japan and China. Everything tends
to show that in a few years the Pacific will be
reached by several avenues through the American
continent. The rebellion in the United States has
induced Congress, •in order to preserve the Pacific
States in the Union, to hurry on the Pacific rail-
road from the Western States to California. The
gold discoveries of Fraser's River and Cariboo
have already drawn attention to a communication
between Canada and British Columbia. Between
those territories there will be first the bridle path,
then the waggon road, and then the iron railway.
Thus war and the thirst for gold will accelerate the
march of civilisation. When avenues through Ame-
rica are opened up, then the Pacific will be crossed
in many tracks by steam. Before many years
have elapsed mails and passengers from Europe will
most probably reach Jeddo, Pekin, Sydney, Mel-
bourne, and Otago through America, as the quickest ;
route. The British postal subsidy system wisely
adapted and regulated may do much towards im-
proving the communication to our great markets in
North Eastern Asia and at the antipodes.
Let us ask again, why should the over-taxed peo-
ple of England pay for carrying wealthy colonists
and foreigners and their mails? Why should this
country carry French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
and Danish mails respectively to the West Indies,
the United States, Brazil, Goa, Macao, Manilla, and
Java, for a mere song ? It was originally done,
doubtless, to prevent those nations from running
rival packets to our own. But it has at all events
not prevented France from establishing mail steam
packets to the West Indies, the United States, India,
and China. And let her succeed. She will put
English steam-packet companies on their mettle,
not
competition end Prevent the evils of a monopoly. England's
mercantile sailing navy has far more than held its
shouldow n against
a the of the world, and why
mercantile steam navy do the same ?
It will be long
before foreigne steam merchant fleets
win compare avithtiha:lsseafoifir med
dofthe ships of the
Oriental, West India,
and of those of Canard's, rc, and
Cape Companies,
I
for Europe for the fighting inn
with the storms of the Atlantic
and of France
the &c. It
o is as safe
t cyclones battle
of
the China seas, as to be chafing from inaction in the
Champs de Mars. Let France have her mail packets
and her colonies, let her invade Mexico, if she is
simple enough to do so, and pursue her conquests
efe
in Cochin China. With valuable and d nceless
mail packets on the high seas and dependencies se-
parated from her by the ocean, she would be bound
over more tightly to keep the peace than she has
ever been yet. —Daily News.

SUSPENSE.—I believe that, to the young, sus- I
pense is the most intolerable suffering. Active misery
always brings with it it 3 uwn power of endurance. What
a common expression it is to hear, "Well, if I had known
what I had to go through beforehand, I never should have
believed it possible that I could have done it." But it is a
dreadful thing to be left alone with your imagination, to have
to fancy thekworst, and yet not know what the worst may
be; and this in early youth has a degree of acute anguish
that after years cannot know. As we advance in life we
find all things hero too utterly worthless to grieve over
them as we once could grieve; we grow cold and careless;
the dust to which we are hastening has entered into our
hearts,