Sessional_Paper_1884-1885 — Page 121

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That is to say the boats would start with fair regularity perhaps, but their move- ments and their ports of call would be entirely governed by considerations relating to cargo, so that it would be quite possible that a P. & O. steamer which had left Europe before the French mail might arrive here after it.

5. There are enough steamers, take them all together, to allow of a mail from Europe arriving in Hongkong every two or three days. Such a state of things would be indeed desirable if it could be counted on. The mails would be small, would be quickly dealt with, and there would be much less rush and impatience about their distribution than at present. But it is as useless to hope for this as it would be to believe that meteorologists will ever be able to arrange that rain shall fall only when it is convenient. The steamers would come in, as they do at present, three and four within a day or two, and then no more perhaps for nearly a fortnight.

6. I submit that there is little analogy between the lines of steamers plying to China and those which cross the Atlantic. There are no ports of call in the Atlantic, the voyage occupies little over a week, and first-class steamers leave regularly enough to ensure the regular arrival of the mails at either end of the route. But the voyage to China occupies from 4 weeks to 8 or even 9 weeks, according to the class of vessel; there are several ports of call; and the chances of steamers passing one another would introduce endless confusion into the service. Letters which left London earlier would be continually arriving after those which left later. I do not see how the London Post Office is to form any reasonable guess which of three steamers leaving London or Liverpool for China within the same week will arrive first. We cannot even do it between here and Shanghai, a voyage of 4 days! The experience of this Office in transmitting mails for Japan since the P. & O. subsidy was withdrawn shews how impossible it is to secure any thing like regularity of arrival by means of cargo steamers alone. The most anxious care has been exercised to select the best opportunities, but the result has been that the three communities of Japan have been continually complaining ever since the change was made.

With regard to the homeward mails, few persons 'except merchants would ever have much idea when they would leave, and, as often as not, the notice would be very short.

The

7. If therefore the French packets continued running, the whole situation would resolve itself into heavy fortnightly mails forwarded by their means. outward mails would take at least four hours to sort, and we should have all the old evils back again (now almost forgotten) of firms having their correspondence addressed to Singapore and sent up by private hand so as to get it quickly, &c. This might be economical, but it would not be pleasant, nor could it be called

progress.

8. It is useless to suppose that any inducement would prevail on the public to correspond by private steamers if the French mails were available. When the postage to and from England was 1/4d. by the mail, every body here knew that letters could be forwarded with fair regularity by private steamers for 6d. I believe there was only one person in the entire community who took advantage of the lower rate, and that person was a lady.

9. The abolition of a subsidised service could be effected to some extent by not extending the contract beyond Singapore. There are quite sufficient steamers between Singapore and Hongkong, and between Hongkong and Shanghai, to