The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-18 00:00:00

tilitrbr Xbition.

WARWICK
_RACES.

(THIS DAY.)

(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
• FREE HANDICAP STEEPLE CHASE,
Gulnare
The Unknown

Eight ran.
The SCURRY STAKES were won by the Macaw.

I
of the company, and if he had such a wish his task would
certainly be a difficult one, but he thought it right that
there should be no appearance of overcharge in what
was stated against the company ; and, in the first place,
he might remind their lordships of the exact nature of
the communication which existed at the present moment
between this country and Australia. The Australian
Royal Mail Company did not provide the only means of
postal communication between England and the Aus-
tralian colonies. There was, or there ought to be, a
regular monthly mail, starting alternately from Ply.
mouth and Southampton, proceeding on each alternate
month by the Cape of Good Hope to Australia, and the
other months by the Mediterranean and Singapore. On.
every alternate month of the year the service was per-
formed by the Australian Mail Steam Navigation Com-
pany, their vessels sailing by way of St. Vincent and
the Cape of Good Hope ; but however imperfectly the
service might be performed by them, there was not the
absence of all sure communication which his noble friend
had seemed to suppose. He (Viscount Canning) had no
I wish to extenuate the conduct of the company in failing
1
to perform their contract, but he simply desired to assure
their lordships and the public as to the fact of there being
a safe and reliable means of communication between this
country and Australia. His noble friend had also found
fault with the low rate of speed at which the vessels of
the company had performed their voyages ; but he (Vis-
count Canning) could not help thinking that his noble
friend had left out of his calculations the stoppages which
the vessels were obliged to make, being compelled to
stop at St. Vincent's, and at the Cape, besides further
stoppages in Australia, before they arrived at Sydney.
These stoppages ought to be taken into consideration.
He was not praising the company for their punctuality
or rapidity ; far from it ; but he wished their lordships'
to be informed of the whole of the facts of the case. The
Australian, on her first voyage, had occupied 95 days in
reaching Sydney ; according to the time tables attached
to the contract 79 days was the time allowed to her for
completing the voyage. Upon her return she had oc-
cupied 113 days in going over the same space. That
therefore gave, in the one instance, a delay of 16, and in
the other a delay of 34 days over and above the right
time. With respect to touching at King George's
Sound, he was not prepared to defend the arrangement
under which that provision made a part of the contract.
The contract had been signed in June last, and he was
ignorant of the motive which had induced the Govern-
ment of the day to put this and some other provisions
into the contract, though he was sure that they had not
been inserted without due consideration. However, he
was inclined to think that the stoppage at King George's
Sound was on the whole objectionable. His noble friend
had stated correctly all that had happened in reference
to this unfortunate vessel the Australian. She ought to
have left Plymouth on her last voyage on the 3d of Feb.,
but the company had made application that she should
not sail until the 23d, as she was not likely to be ready
for sea before that day. The Lords of the Admiralty
had given their sanction to the delay, and the mails had/
been sent down to Plymouth on the 23d, but the vessel
was not then ready, and did not sail until the 24th. This
last delay had been without the sanction of the Lords of
the Admiralty, and a fine had been inflicted on the occa-
casion, which would be enforced against the company.
On the 24th, the Australian put to sea, but on the 25th
she was obliged to put back to Plymouth, herself disabled
and her mails very seriously damaged. So far as re-
garded the performance of the public service, her Ma-
jesty's Government felt it to be their duty to provide for
the immediate dispatch of the letter part of the mails, and
it had so happened that when the accident occurred to
the Australian, it was within seven days of the dispatch
of the next monthly steamer. Accordingly, the letter
portion of the mail had been immediately sent to South-
ampton, and was now on its way, by the Mediterranean
and Singapore, to Australia. He did not apprehend
that much inconvenience would be suffered by parties
from this brief delay of seven days, because the means of
communication by which the letters had been dispatched
was so much shorter than the other that the letters would
reach their destination nearly as soon as if the Australian
had proceeded on her voyrge. After sundry repairs, it
had been announced to Government that the Australian
would be ready to start again from Plymouth on the 10th
of this month. She did start, with a new mail, and,
as their lordships were aware, was obliged to put back
into Plymouth, more than ever disabled ; the mails, how-
ever, had suffered no injury, and the vessel was now on
her way up the Channel to the port of London. That
portion of the last mail which was addressed to the Cape
of Good Hope had been immediately transhipped to a
vessel belonging to the Screw Steam Company, which
sailed the following day ; and, in fact, the only portion
of the mail which would be at all delayed, and by which
any inconvenience would be caused, was the newspapers.
That, no doubt, would occasion serious inconvenience to
parties in Australia, but it had been quite ont of the
power of the Post-office to make arrangements for the
transmission of the newspapers, inasmuch as it would
have been utterly hopeless to attempt to convey the 150
large boxes which would be required for the purpose
across the Isthmus of Suez, unless due notice were given
beforehand. Those newspapers would in all pro-
bability be conveyed in a day or two by some fast-
sailing passenger vessel, and in the ordinary course
of things they would be delivered in the Australian
colonies within ninety-five days. He believed that he
had now replied to the inquiry of his noble friend so far
as itirelated to the transport of the present mails. As
regarded the question whether the Government would
take any steps for enforcing the contract with the Aus-
tralian Royal Mail Steam-packet Company, it was neces-
sary that he should state that, during the delay which
had occurred in consequence of the mishaps of the Aus-
tralian, the Lords of the Admiralty had received a letter
from the chairman of the company, setting forth the dif-
ficulties under which the company conceived that they
had been called upon to perform the service, and pray-
ing for a favourable consideration. and requesting that,
as it would be impossible for them to provide a vessel
for the conveyance of the mail which ought to leave
England in due course on the 3d of April, their lord-
ships would consent to forego that service, and would he
satisfied if the vessel were ready by the 3d of June. That
letter had been referred to a committee which was now
sitting for the purpose of investigating the state of the
Post-office packet service. The committee having bad
the letter before them, had yesterday reported their
opinion to the Lords of the Admiralty ; but as he (Vis-
count Canning) was not then in a position to state that
any action had been taken on that opinion, he hoped
that his noble friend would not press him to give any
distinct explanation of the terms in which it had been
conveyed. It would be perhaps sufficient to state that
the spirit in which the .committee had approached the
subject had been, that while, on the one hand, it was
most desirable that the Government should not justly
undergo the charge of straining their legal rights or of
pressing hard upon the company, yet, on the other
hand, it was their firm conviction that the system of con-
tracts for the packet service of this country was to be
carried on, and if the public was to be called upon to pay
large subsidies for such service, it was the duty of the
Government to insure to the public the enjoyment of all
contracts of a reasonable amount of punctuality, cer-
tainty,
and dispatch. (Hear, hear.) He had only to
add that, if the contract between the company and the
Government were not already on the table of both houses
of Parliament, it should be placed on their lordships'
table forthwith.
Lord COLCHESTER was understood to observe that
it was for the convenience of Western Australia that it
had been provided by the contract that vessels should
call at King George's Sound. In reply to a further re-
mark by the noble lord, which did not reach the gallery,
Viscount CANNING said he believee that the por-
tion of the Australian's mail which had suffered most
were the bags for Melbourne. Those bags had been
opened and the letters dried, which was an operation
that had occupied a considerable time. The letters
which had their directions still legible had then been
packed in boxes, and had been sent off by the Peninsular
and Oriental Steam Packet Company's vessel along the
overland route. There were, however, about 60 or 70
letters, the addresses of which had been so entirely obli-
terated that it was quite impossible to forward them to
their destination, and under these circumstances they
had been dealt with in the usual way, and sent to the
Dead Letter-office. About half of them had been claimed,
and about 30 still remained, which could hardly be •
called letters, and could not be distinguished from mere
scraps of paper.
In reply to a question by Lord WHARNCLIPPE,
which did not reach us,
a vVerisycosantnitsfCacANtoryNalnNswGesratiod ht
he
ef earedgu es
thi
ee
nc ooufl dhinsotngcbvlee
friend, because it related go entirely to Admiralty busi-
ness that he was not fully informed on the subject. He
had seen a report from Captain Lowe, the Admiralty
surveyor at Plymouth, to the effect that, on examina-
tion, it appeared that the Australian had started on her
second voyage with something like 400 tons weight, in
the shape of coals, stores, and cargo, beyond that which
she had had on a former voyage, which, although not
performed at the stipulated rate of speed, had been
caus
safe
e, andto prosperous. It Was conjectured that this
gether with
,severe weather, had -led to the
opening of her seams, through which the water had got
in, and the safety of the vessel had been risked. This
suppositionsho
elohnadg asb ee s
nhcarefully
ea
appeared
lto be borne out by the fact that
Perfectlyinap-
parently
watertight.
The conversation then dropped.

BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS.

On the motion that the house do now adjourn,
The Earl of DERBY said he wished, before the house
adjourned to ask a question of the noble duke the Secre-
tary of State for the Colonies, or of the noble and
learned lord on the woolsack. Their lordships had re-
ceived in the course of that day a communication on a
very important subject from the other house, to whom
it was due, in point of courtesy and respect, that they
ishould pofaysutchhe
deeaerpliesinttaetrteesntt.ion,rinheorcoemepe
communicationon
r re-
ferred to the proceedings which had bLen taken by the
other house under the act which had been brought into
m s e e soe
a,gf l ae ss t
nyf etre,
sane a n w
kind
might ryet
whichbooperreacteisioevnveedirnabltyhoetthhceeoirrur lordships. This was the first in-
stance in which they had been called upon under the
provisions of the act of last year to concur with the
mue soeftu
nohnet
oeo they
the soi
intended
that
hmerta
ascertain
ees theesar
gametipurposemessage.
Government
frpcHuoomrpursue
Government
tneecitet
pre-
venting acts of bribery, and he thought it wagosngeimswtpotouhrldei
v iwtHaihntonhtut stehe
referencean that they
rsCt shouldhoeemytnith
wasai
l.d
henow
ha
dt the
expectedduty
course which they would advise their
olordst hie pGs
Government
ooproursmuenet
the house, but
mmadotioenbfyorstohmeeadmjoelmberenft
ofh
havebefore
the been
probably it had been from inadvertence
that no such
Communication had been made. He now wished to ask
what course her Majeaty's Government were prspa
eiragvhtuoie
conceived
effectually