§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKEsaid, he was charged with a petition from the Australian Postal Association, praying for the re-establishment of the Postal Steam Service between Australia and England, in explanation of which he would describe the strange position, at present, of the postal service between this country and Australia. The question of postal steam communication with Australia had been agitated since 1846. In 1851 the attention of Parliament was particularly called to the subject, and a Committee was appointed, on the Motion of a noble Lord in the other House, to make inquiry into the postal service of Australia. The result of that inquiry was that two special contracts had been entered into to carry on that service. One contract was made with the Oriental Steam Navigation Company to carry the mails to the Mediterranean, whence they were taken to Singapore, to be from thence conveyed to Australia; the other arrangement was for their conveyance by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and the contract was given to the General Screw Steam Navigation Company. These arrangements were for alternate months, the mails of one month being conveyed by one route, and of the next month by the other way; and the time occupied in so carrying the mails to Australia was, by one route, from sixty to sixty-five days, and by the other route, from sixty-four to seventy days. Such were the arrangements up to the commencement of the war. Whether they were perfectly satisfactory or not he would not say, but they gave a constant and tolerably rapid communication between Australia and the 1056 mother country. Now, the great importance of that communication was evident from the fact that the mails carried viâ Singapore generally amounted to thirty or forty tons in weight, contained in 300 or 400 boxes; and the amount of postal revenue received on them was now 90,000l. a year. The value of our exports to Australia in 1853 was no less than 14,506,532l.—an unheard-of amount, exceeding our average exports to America by a million and a half, and being double our exports to India or to Germany, and six times greater than our exports to France; seven times greater than our exports to China. That our Australian colonies should have risen so rapidly to such great commercial importance, was a strong argument for a speedy and sure postal intercourse with them. The grievances, however, they complained of now were, that at this moment, when such large quantities of English goods were lying there, and when it was particularly important that their owners should be able to send out instructions how to dispose of them, postal communication was stopped. He meant, that as sailing vessels had been substituted for steam vessels, the people must now wait three, four, or five months for the return of their correspondence, whereas formerly the time a letter took to reach them was six weeks. The noble Earl opposite (Earl Grey), in receiving a deputation from Australia on this subject, said "he viewed the establishment of steam postal communication as a matter of the utmost importance, and that he should be happy to do what he could to remove the obstacles in the way of its establishment," and he therefore hoped he should have his assistance on the present occasion. The petitioners, while they admitted that the war must have diverted a portion of the steam marine, said that by proper arrangements the steam postal communication with Australia need not have been interrupted. The petition having given information as to the subject of which it complained, went on to propose the remedy. Their Lordships would remember that in other colonies, such as the Canadas, they were allowed to arrange their own postal service; and the petitioners asked on the part of Australia that she should be allowed to do the same thing. They stated that there existed in Australia wealthy steam companies, possessed of steamships well adapted for the conveyance of mails, and willing to establish a branch line between Sydney 1057 and Singapore, and they prayed the House to take into its earliest consideration the injury sustained by the commerce of the colony in consequence of the suspension of all steam intercourse with this country, and to vote an address, praying Her Majesty to be graciously pleased to direct that arrangements might be made for the re-establishment of postal communications between the two countries. Whatever difficulties there might be in the way of carrying on the postal service as it had been carried on before the commencement of the war, he could see no objection to allowing the colony to do that which had been done by other colonies—namely, establish a postal service of its own.
§ VISCOUNT CANNINGsaid, that the question which the noble Earl had brought under the consideration of their Lordships was undoubtedly one of considerable importance to the mercantile community in this country, and of vital interest, to that body in Australia. But he thought that the noble Earl had been misled with respect to some of the details he had laid before their Lordships. He was surprised to hear the noble Earl state that the revenue derived by this country from the conveyance of the mails to and from Australia amounted to 90,000l. a year.
§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKEexplained: What he meant to say was that that was the gross revenue derived from that service.
§ VISCOUNT CANNINGHe could assure the noble Earl that even that statement was a very exaggerated one. It appeared from the Report of a Commission which had last year been laid before their Lordships, that two years ago the gross revenue derived from that service had not quite amounted to one-half of the alleged sum of 90,000l. a year; and since that time the revenue from that source had been diminished by the reduction effected in the rate of postage, so that, according to the nearest estimates he could obtain, it did not at present amount to more than about 36,000l. a year. The noble Earl had stated that there were in Australia shipowners who would be willing to undertake the carriage of mails between this country and Australia. An application had been addressed to him by an Australian company that he should enter into engagements with them to the effect that, if they were to construct certain vessels which they did not at present possess, they should receive a contract from the Government. 1058 But he had declined to accede to that application, because he considered that it would be rash and very unadvisable to entertain the proposals of a company which had not already the means of carrying out their undertaking, and which could not give some substantial proof that they could fulfil their contract. With regard to what was called the suspension of the postal service with Australia, he must remind the noble Earl that the war in which we were engaged not only called for every resource which the country could command, but paralysed the means by which those resources were maintained. Two companies had not long ago been engaged in carrying on that postal communication; but last year, at the outbreak of the war, a number of large ocean steamers had been hired by the Government for the purpose of military transport from several companies, and from those two companies in particular. It so happened that he was at that very time in communication with one of those companies—namely, the Peninsular and Oriental—for the purpose of obtaining from them the conveyance of a monthly instead of a bi-monthly mail; so that while the contract with the General Screw Steam Shipping Company would also have continued in force there would have been eighteen instead of twelve mails each year between this country and Australia. The exigencies of the war, however, had not only prevented such an arrangement, but had even led to a reduction of the postal communication previously established. Australia was not the only sufferer. The lines to all the other colonies and to foreign countries had been interfered with. The Peninsular and Oriental Company had, a short time ago, eight of their vessels employed in the conveyance of troops; the General Screw Steam Shipping Company had seven vessels engaged in the same service; eight of Cunard's vessels had been similarly employed; and altogether there had been not less than from twenty-seven to thirty large postal steamers in the service of the Government for the purposes of the war. Australia had certainly suffered more than our other colonies from that interruption of its ordinary postal communication, because, from its greater distance, it had become impossible to find any substitutes for the steamers which had been so withdrawn, and the Government had necessarily been compelled to fall back on sailing vessels for the convey- 1059 ance of the Australian mails. But they were so convinced of the inconvenience which had been produced by that change, that, notwithstanding the exigencies of the war, they were at present in communication with the parties who were most likely to be able to supply the existing deficiency—the Peninsular and Oriental Company—as to the terms on which that Company would be able to establish a postal service with Australia by way of Singapore and Point de Galle. He did not look forward to this as a permanent arrangement, as he thought that hereafter a much better one might be made, both as regarded the public here and the colony. He repeated that he thought there were some errors of the statement in the petition which the noble Earl had just laid before the House. In opposition to the allegation of the noble Earl with respect to the capabilities of companies in the colony for carrying out that communication, he should observe that he had reason to believe that there were not more than one or two steamers in Australia that could undertake the long ocean voyage. Again, the noble Earl had fallen into a serious error in speaking of the difference of time in which the voyage was made by the steamers and by sailing vessels. The noble Earl had stated that in consequence of the employment of sailing vessels instead of steamers it took four or five months at present to send a letter to Australia and to receive an answer to it, although the same service had formerly been performed in five or six weeks.
§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKEsaid, that what he had intended to state was, that whereas the passage between this country and Australia had formerly occupied only about six weeks, it occupied at present three or four months.
§ VISCOUNT CANNINGThat, too, was a mistake. The passage between this country and Australia had never been performed in so short a time as six weeks: the average time consumed in the passage by the vessels of the General Screw Steam Shipping Company had been from eighty-five to ninety days. It was the intention of the Government to establish again, as soon as possible, an efficient steam communication between this country and the Australian colonies; and he would take the liberty to add, that he hoped the colonists and those who influenced their councils would be patient with the Government in this matter. He thought it was not unfair to remind them that we were 1060 engaged in a very serious contest, and that whatever might be thought of the manner in which that contest had hitherto been conducted, one thing was certain, that the evils of war had not affected the distant and peaceful shores of our Australian colonies, and that neither their enterprise nor their tranquillity had in any way suffered, or even been threatened. That being so, he thought he might fairly ask that they should display a little indulgence, and that they should evince their readiness to forego for a time the convenience they had hitherto derived from the employment in their postal service of vessels which were at present found essentially necessary for the vigorous prosecution of the war.
§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKEsaid, he was informed that the Australasian Steam Packet Company possessed twenty vessels, many of which were of 700 or 800 tons burden.