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ption of tail regarding the weemption Steamers from the operation of the Chinese Passengers Act, 1860.
9.
No further complaint communication has reached me from the Agent of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, but a few days back M. Couil, the Principal Agent of the Messageries Maritimes Company, handed in for my consideration copies of letters which had passed between his Director and the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Paris, showing that the French Government were in correspondence with Lord Granville on the subject. M. Couil desired that, pending the result of that correspondence, the Company's Steamers might continue to carry passengers to Saigon and Singapore without complying with the Act of 1860 or the local Ordinances.
The arguments of the Agent of the Messageries Maritimes are identical with those of the French Chargé d'Affaire, whose letter to Lord Granville was enclosed in Your Lordship's Despatch, No 139, of the 1st October, which reached me by last Mail.
There can, I think, be no doubt that although by the letter of the Imperial Act, 1860, the Steamers of the two Companies
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