The Postmaster-General's proposal to continue the State contract with the
P. and 0. Company for the conveyance of the mails to India, China, and Australia for ten years more, excites a strong resistance. The great Steamship Company offer, from their point of view, very fair terms, agreeing, in consideration of
the long contract, to increase their speed, and reduce their sub- vention to £265,000 a year. If a shorter period were substituted, they would demand £25,000 more. Their opponents, however, urge that other Companies would do the work more cheaply ; that, in view of the progress of science, ten years is too long a period ; and that the Post Office ought to consider the new route across Canada. By this route a shipment of tea from Japan has this week arrived. in thirty days, or thirteen days leas than the time occupied by. the Suez Canal route. The objection about ether Companies may be disregarded, as the P. and 0. Company's fleet really forms a supplementary fleet of transports at the disposal of the Admiralty ; but the time asked for is decidedly too long. Five years would be far better, even if we have to pay a little more ; and we are not sure that a reserve might not to be made as to the route to China. We shall have a quarrel with the Dominion else, as the sharp folk there think they are going, to secure a large slice of the carrying trade with the Far East. They may, the tea trade in particular benefiting greatly by speed.
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