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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 885
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- |
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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expressly for this purpose. The Peninsular and Oriental Company have two contract lines from and to Brindisi, one the India and China line and the other the Australian. The Orient Company have one contract line from and to Naples. Every week a packet of the Peninsular and Oriental Company leaves Brindisi on the arrival of the special train, and proceeds as far as Aden: in one week this steamer goes on to Bombay with the mails for India; and in the next week she drops the mails for India at Aden, whence The steamer they are fetched by a steamer which works between Bombay and Aden. from Brindisi on this occasion carries the mails for Australia, Ceylon, the Straits Settle- ments, Hong Kong, and China, as far as Colombo, and dropping them all except the Australian mails, proceeds by way of King George's Sound to Adelaide, and thence to Melbourne and Sydney. The mails for Western Australia are dropped at Albany, and the rest are usually landed at Adelaide. Meanwhile a steamer of the Peninsular and Oriental Company which plies between Bombay and China, but only becomes a contract packet at Colombo, has taken up at Colombo the mails for China, &c., dropped by the Australian main line packet, and proceeded with them to Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
In the intervening week, when the main line boat of the Peninsular and Oriental Company goes on to Bombay, a packet of the Orient Company leaves Naples immedi- ately after the arrival of a branch special train which takes the Australiau mails from The Foggia, where they are detached from the Indian mail train bound for Brindisi, Orient Packet, like that of the other company, touches at Ceylon, leaves mails for the Island, and proceeds by King George's Sound to Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. In the reverse direction, in like manner, there is a packet from Bombay every week, a packet from Australia and Ceylon every week, and a packet from China, Hong Kong, and the Straits Settlements every fortnight. In one week the Peninsular and Oriental Company conjoins the mails from China and Australia at Colombo, and these again with the Indian mails at Aden, and, bringing the whole together to Brindisi, consigue them to the special train, which carries them through together to Calais, whence a special packet conveys them to Dover (under an Imperial contract) unless they can be more advan- tageously brought by one of the regular Channel packets. In the next week the Indian mail alone is brought straight from Bombay vid Aden and Brindisi and has the special train and channel services to itself, while the Australian and Ceylon mail comes in at Naples and reaches England by ordinary services.
Thus there is weekly communication to all the principal places in the East by services hired and paid for with British or Colonial money, except Hong Kong, China, and the Straits Settlements, and with these the deficiency is made good by a French packet service of which we have unrestricted use, and which alternates with ours so as to give weekly communication.
Under the terms of the existing contract, the Australian service of the Peninsular and Oriental Company is worked together with their service to and from China, at an economy of 10,000l. a year, obtained by allowing the mails to be carried between Brindisi and Colombo in one packet; the whole mail system of the East is more or less closely con- nected, and an attempt to separate the Australian completely from the other Eastern mail services at the present time would lead, probably, to heavy additional expense, and certainly to the re-opening of highly controversial questions. Just now most of the difficult questions have been settled as between the various sections of the Eastern mail system, and the services are working smoothly and satisfactorily.
At present the Imperial The western route to the East is in a state of transition. contribution to it is partly accidental and partly intentional. The contract packet service Those are from Liverpool and Queenstown to New York is for two voyages a week. performed by the Cunard and White Star Companies, who bind themselves to keep their best steamers on the line save when taken off for overhaul. This service is of course chiefly meant to meet the needs of communication with the United States, which provide the service to this country, using such ships as they find best of all those which England and Europe pour into the harbour of New York. But from San Francisco there arc steamers crossing the Pacific not only to China and Japan, but also to New Zealand and Australia, and many mails are sent by the Mersey liners to New York and carried by This is at train to San Francisco to reach their destination by the Pacific steamers. present the best route for New Zealand, and that colony maintains a monthly packet service to and from San Francisco, receiving the rest of its mails from England via Australia.
The direct Imperial contribution to the maintenance of the western route is the subsidy which we pay the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for a composite service from Quebec or Halifax (according to season) by rail to Vancouver, and thence by
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packet to Japan, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, and back the same way. The contract provides for a service once in four weeks, and includes the conveyance of troops and stores, and the pre-emption of the packets for cruiser purposes. The subsidy is 60,000/. a year, of which Canada pays 15,000l. The Company at times performs voluntarily a three-weekly service, and is doing so at present. The mails are sent by the direct Canadian packets from Liverpool vid Londonderry to Quebec or Halifax, and back the
same way.
Since this service was laid down under the Imperial contract the project of a Canadian- Australian service has been kept steadily in view in the Colonies, and is now realized. The Canadian-Australian Steamship Company is running monthly between Vancouver and Sydney under subsidies from the Colonial Governments of Canada and New South Wales. The steamers call at the Fiji Islands, to which the Vancouver route is now the best.
The Colony of Queensland maintains a monthly packet service to and from England vid Torres Straits under a contract with the British India Steam Navigation Company; and the mails forwarded by that service are trans-shipped at Aden from and to the Imperial packets, thus getting the advantage of the special services across the channel and the continent of Europe. The chief value of this Torres Straits service, however, is for freight and passengers.
An abstract of Imperial contracts for foreign and Colonial packet services is annexed, and from this many details may be learnt.
The India and China contract, it will be seen, is terminable on the 31st of January 1898. The two Australian contracts were to have expired on the 31st of January 1895, but they have been prolonged by general consent of all the parties for one year, i.e., till the 31st of January 1896. The Canadian Pacific contract expires with six months' notice on the 7th of April 1901, or can be terminated at the same time as the India and China contract on payment of a fine of 20,000. The Cunard and White Star contracts and that for the channel service are terminable by one year's notice; and the arrangements with France and Italy for the special train service come to an end on the 31st of December 1897, within a month of the time when we can, as at present situated, be free of all the contracts.
The SERVICE to and from AUSTRALIA viâ Suez.
A Colonial Conference held last year at Brisbane considered the subject of the" federal mail contracts," and passed resolutions raising questions which in the aggregate were of so much importance as to demand careful consideration on this side and to involve, in all probability, prolonged discussion,
It was suggested that fresh tenders for the packet service between this country and Australia should at once be invited, but owing to the shortness of the time for an exhaustive discussion of anything in the shape of a revised contract to come into force on the 1st of February 1895-especially if, as appeared to be desired, the tenders were submitted to the Colonial Governments--a counter proposal was made here to prolong the present contracts.
There has not yet been time to examine the bearings of all the resolutions maturely, but it is evident that they point to an improved service, and therefore, in all probability, to a more expensive service than the present, and to an apportionment of cost more favourable to the Colonies than the present apportionment, and more arduous for the home tax-payer; and, although some six years ago the Imperial Government consented, at a considerable financial sacrifice, to enter into the present joint arrangements for the packet service for seven years, the present moment is not opportune for any increase of Imperial expenditure. Hence, the Colonies have been told that, if the suggestion of an improved service under more arduous conditions for the Mother-country were pressed, it might even become a question whether some such system as that in vogue before 1888 might not have to be reverted to, the Imperial Post Office providing mail conveyance as far as Ceylon, and the Australian Colonies providing a line of packets to that island as formerly.
Such an arrangement would obviously compare unfavourably with the present except as regards economy; the Imperial Post Office would be sorry to have to resort to that plan, and is disposed to think that, if the present arrangements could be maintained intact until the 31st of January 1898, when the India and China contract is terminable, there would be a better chance of coming to satisfactory conclusions in connexion with
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