§ SIR FREDERICK PERKINSasked the Postmaster General, Whether the Post Office Department has not found the landing of the West India Mails at Plymouth, instead of at Southampton, to be without material advantage to the public service, and involving an unnecessary expense to the country; and, whether the Royal Mail Company have expressed any unwillingness to cease calling at Plymouth; also, what are the objections to the India, China, and Australian Mails being conveyed through the Suez Canal; and, if the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company have not guaranteed to convey those Mails to their destination, viâ the Canal, in the same time as they are at present conveyed; and, under these circumstances, what advantage is derived by the Mails being landed at Alexandria, and transmitted to Suez by Railroad?
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, in answer to the first part of the Question of the hon. Member, that the landing of the West India Mails at Plymouth had been found to be of material advantage to the commercial community, and, therefore, steps were being taken to remedy what he imagined to be an accidental omission in the new Postal Con- 1588 tract by which those Mails were no longer to be landed at Plymouth. The amended Contract, when ready, would in the usual course be laid upon the Table. The subject of the second part of the Question was still under the careful and anxious consideration of the Government, and when they arrived at a determination with reference to it, which he hoped would be in a few days, he should be happy to answer the Question of the hon. Member.