§ MR. BAXTERsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, If the British and North American Royal Mail Steamship Company are employing Vessels seventeen years old on the Halifax and Boston line; and if, at the expiry of the Contract with that Company, the Government intend making new arrangements by which the postal service may be performed with more expedition and at less expense to the country than under the present subsidized system?
MR. PEEL,in reply, said, he understood that there were two vessels on the Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston line, which were about seventeen years old, but it did not appear that any complaints had occurred of delay on that line which the contractors had not been able to account for. With regard to any future arrangement, he found that the existing contract did not expire until 1867, so that there were three years in which to consider such arrangement. He was aware that the Committee on Contracts of 1860 had expressed an opinion that no subsidy was necessary on that line; that there might be an efficient postal service without a subsidy; and in considering what should be the future arrangement of a contract, the view expressed by that Committee should not be lost sight of.