§ MR. GRAVESsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, If it is intended to confine the Tenders for Conveyance of Her Majesty's Mails from the United Kingdom to New York to ships sailing under the British flag; and, if not, whether vessels tendering under a Foreign flag will be subject to the surveys and conditions imposed on British ships carrying Her Majesty's Mails?
§ MR. HUNTsaid, in reply, that the tenders the hon. Member alluded to, were asked for in pursuance of the Postal Convention concluded this year between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States. The object of that Convention was to carry out an arrangement which had been acceded to by the late Government, and under which the Postmaster General of this country was to provide for the conveyance of mails on stated days from certain ports in England to certain ports in the United States, and 961 the United States were to provide for the conveyance of mails the reverse way. There was no restriction on either side with regard to the flag; but he believed that, other things being equal, the English Postmaster General would give the preference to vessels sailing under the British flag. The vessels under foreign flags would, by the tender, be subject to the same conditions as those imposed upon British ships, but such conditions did not include the surveys to which the hon. Member had alluded.