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The position of the Company is briefly this.
On 2nd June 1888 Mr A.K. Travers, Assistant Postmaster General, wrote a letter to the then Superintendent of this Company, (as per copy attached to my letter to the Hon. A. M. Thomson of 25th January last) embodying the terms of an Agreement for the conveyance of Mails between China and India; this Agreement has never been cancelled. We further contend, see extract from the instructions from my Directors contained in my letter of 16th November to your predecessor, that if Mails were shipped for a port off the Contract-Line it is no fault of ours if they were not conveyed to destination, as intended, in our steamers, and the Company are consequently entitled to the full Mail money due.
I would, therefore, again submit to your favourable consideration my letter of 16th November last, in which I conveyed to you a proposal made by my Directors that the matter should be adjusted by my refunding to you the amount paid for the conveyance of the Mails to Japan during the same period, which appears to me to be a fair, not to say, liberal concession on the part of this Company.
It would be out of the question for me to recommend my Directors to compound the matter in a manner so obviously disadvantageous