The Sun.
London, England, 1858-06-28 00:00:00

THE AUSTRALIAN A ICS:

The mail contract wit'. the European and Aus-
tralia!) Steam Packet Company is dissolved. It com
ru-nced in Jen., 1857, and has ther fore lasted only
18 months. The remuneration for conveying the
; math was 188,0001. a year, a considerable portion
of which has been withheld on account of fines.
The gre it errors of this company wore commencing
the con:ract before they, had a sufficient fleet gua-
ranteeing a high speed under all- circumstances,
and agreeing to cumulative penalties. Against
this it must baconsidered that if they ha el not com-
menced when they did, and guaranteed the speed,
and a.!reed to the penalties in the government tee-
der, they would not have had the contract. The
European and Australian Mail Packet Company is
the only company ag-tins whom Government has
rigidly imposed !he centrac,. penelties, and tlie re-
suet is a complete break down of the company. The
Colonial Secretary says that the Royal Mei! Com-
pany is for the present to convey the mails to Aus-
tralia. -But how is that company to do it unless it
be with the ships of the discarded company ?—and
it is 'he'bad performance of- these ships thet I;as
caused their prese it owners the loss of th-ir con-
tract. Few of the European and Australian Co.'s
steamers have kept their time.. The Oneida broke
down in the Indian Ocean, and caused delay and
an immense deal of anxiety ; the Emeu ran on the
rocks in the Red Sea ; and news has reached Eng-
laud that the Columbia,' has also broken down.
These three steameis telong to the discarded com-
pany. That company has never been able to perform
their contract, even imperfectly, except with the
assistance of ships from other companies. The
Australian mails have b _en conveyed under con-
traci via =he Cape of Geod Hope by steamers and
eailing ships, by way of Egept and Singapore, and
overland, via Ceylon. Almost every route and
every means have been tried to convey these mails,
and all have hopelessly failed. It is lameutatle to
thit.k that while we have a perfect mail steam-
packet communication with India, China, the West
therUni•ed Stetes Brazil, the West Coast
of America, and while the mail packets arrive from
those places to a day, yet there is no regularity in
the arrival of the Australian mail packets. Hong
Kong, Valparaiso, Califoreis, Buenos Ayres, places
5,000 and 6,000 miles distant froni England, can
depend upon receiving their letters from England
almost to an hour, while Melbourne and Sydney,
only double the distance, often receive their Eng-
lish letters two and three weeks after they are due.
One cause of the outcry at the irregularities in the
Aim radian mail service is because the mails have
never ran at less than monthly intervals. If there
be a failure in the arrival of a West or East India
MA 1 thp error is rectified 'a fortnight afterwards ;
but if an accident happens to a mail from Austra-
lia—which is far more important commercially to
• •England than a; mail from the Wet Indies—it is
a month before a subsequent mail is due, It has
been proposed to run a fOrtnightly communication
hetween Sydney and Ceylon, the distance between
those two places being not above 6,000 miles.
This, it has been said, is all that is wanted, because
there is a fortnightly communication between Eng-
I slid and Ceylon. The Pacific route has never
been tried, and all that is wanted to complete a
foteniehtly communication by that route is to run
steamers twice a month between Panama and Mel-
bourne. A monthly communication might be
established between P nama and Melbourne,
and also a monthly one between Ceylon or
Sydney. Au-tralia should have a fortoightly
meil. The failure of every contract must now
eecessita-e some new scheme. If the Leviathan
were ready for sea, it would be worth while for Go-
vernment to subsi;iise her and send her to Australia
with them til. Itis probable that the present mail
steamers are too smell t• ) carry mails with any regale-
tete half rotted thegl ,be. Why don't teegovernment
fill the monster screw steamer Himalaya with coal,
and send her with a mail out to Melbourne and Sy-
dney ? This would be a most useful exp"runent, be-
Cansa it would show whether the larger the ship the
• quicker she can reach Australia. The Himalaya is
a Government ship, and the Admiralty can do what
hey please with her. After the depatc', of the
Henelaya, the Atrato or the Persia, the two largest
paddle-wheel steamers in existence, and both sub-
sidised mail packets, could be sent out with a mail
as an experiment. Of °Durso these steamers must
go via the Cape. It will be remembered that an
American piddle-wheel steamer, the Golden Age,
has not only crossed the Indian Ocean but also the
Pacific at a togh sped. We may depend upon it
that any steam; re that would convey the Austra-
lian in. il5 in a considerably less time than they are
now carried would very shortly pay their expenses,
because the Imperial and Australian Governments
must make up their minds to pay them a heavy
?subsidy- -
The Australian colonies must have a superior
mail communication with the mother co intry, and
that very shortly, if human means can possibly ac-
complish it. It is a disgace to this age of progress
and successful enterprise that our finest colonies
should have be -n so tantalised and injured by the
feltetated failure of mail contracts.—Daily News.

THE INDIA. BILL CARRIED.

(Front tile Times )

We should have thought it well worth considera-
ion whether, after the decision come to on the
Resolutions upon the India Bill in favour of some
mystic lumber for the Council, which should com-
bine the requisite of being not less than 12 with
that of not being more than 15, it was desirable
tor he beaten party to stir the matter further, and
whe her, after the House had resolved a portion of
tie Council should be elected, and had repudiat€ d
every constituency outside the C,.uncil that could
be proposed, it was worth while to oppose the only
course left—namely, that of self-election. These
aro matters of party tacies with which we have
little to do ; their fsilure on Friday night could
nave surprised no one, and we suppose, therefore,
hey were reo)ried i 0 for the put pose of putting
on record opinions which it is hoped some day or
other experience will prove to he co rect. To us
the number of the Couucil, especially when the
controversy is limited to so narrow a spice as that
I e'.weeu 12 iind 15, and the m inner of selection
sr appoint tnerit, where these who select or appoint
ate avowed*, competent to the task, appear
matters of very ,econitai y import ince. The error,
if su.h these be, is very ea-y of clrrection, and
time ni,ty teach us more on those things than the
ablest and mot elaborate speculative reasonings.
-The t• uth is, we cannot bring ourselves to re-
gard the &tails of the Bill now finally about to
1 e pissed in:o a law as destined to endure for
any 1 nig period of, time. The meatus, wito all
is discussion, his wit hid fair play. The object
of Lord bleu borough was to produce a Bill as
unlike as possible to the treasure of Lint
Palm, raton. In this he. completely succeeded,
ouly, unfoi tunat•4y, he succeeded in uo h.ng else.
Step by step; -arid one by one, without attack and
wititout con:rover,y," all the coaractedstic and
salient points of the Bill were obliterated, and
nothing was left but ft framework not particularly
artistic, or a canvass from which, by a process of
cleauin.s not unfamiliar to the frequenters of our
National Gallery, the gorgeous colours, portentous
fi uses, and exaggei ate:-.. attitudes of the noble artist
hive been mercilessly obliterated. The problem
before Lord S•astley was how to fill tip this melan-
choly void with eritctinent-c such as might meet the
approval of a House of Commons in which, strange
as it may seem, the friends of the East India Com-
pany,- if not ail-powerful, are, at at.y ra'e, far too.
strong to be neglected. The task was not very
diasult, but not, we should think, a very agreeable
one to a young statesman thoroughly competent to
deal with abstract principles, and anxiou., no doubt,
to wed his name to some important and enduring
piece of legislation. But party necessities must
have their victim as well as the Furies theuiselvss,
and it is only due to Lord Stanley to say that he
his composed his piece of legislative patchwork with
all requisite ability. The best test of this is that,
whatever the faults of the bill, it will pass,—a
quality in the times in which ws live of no ordinary
merit.

The bill will pass, and, whatever its faults, w re-
joice that it will do so. It puts an en 1 to a state of
things which bad existed far too long for our safety
and our credit. it breaks up a whole system ofj,,b-
bery and nepotism, and, if a new one is to be'
formed, gives us at any rate breathing time during
the period of its formation. Self-election is a cumu-
lative evil, less felt at first, but increasing in Men-
till a' last it is apt to become nearly intolera:
ble. For the moment, then, it will not press
heavily upon us. Toe bill will get rid of much
evil and sow the seeds of much other evil, but
it. will, at any rate, act as a reprieve. It is 'strange
indeed that the result of our deliberations about
India should only be to giie us a measure con-
fessedly ve,y far from good, but which, never he-
less, rather than endorse worse things, we are
willing to • ake. The fact is,.the Government has
discovered that if it can only contrive to pro-
duce such a measure as will be. a•ccep:ed by the
adhereiiis of the East India Company it is sate.
Thus, the East India Company, even in its dectruc-
Con, is maser of the Pos ton, and, though unable
to save itself, has been- able to involve in one com-
mon ruin the party to which it owned its death
wound. Like the bee, it has left its sting behind,
and if it cannot claim a victo y may triumph in
revenge, wh'i.ll is almost-as sweet.' It is n.t with
impunity that a g-eat corporation, which has long
exercised more than regal pow; and administered
a patronage such as f9w kings have to bestow, can
be briiuglit to an end. It may fall, but the Samson
tilkat pulla (lowa the pilluo of iti ocutitiatiqa met i