“11 August, 1848.”
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
The preceding statement and evidence can scarcely fail to force on the conviction of every unbiassed mind “the following conclusions:—
1. That the Company owes its present extensive employment in the Contract Mail Packet Service to no other circumstance than that of having placed itself, by its own enterprise, in a position to execute that Service with greater advantage to the public interests than could otherwise he obtained.
2. That in the planning, undertaking, and executing of that Service, it has realised important benefits to the public, whether considered in a financial, political, social, or commercial point of view.
And, looking to its present position,—namely, the possession of an ample capital and means—of extensive practical experience in the management of steam navigation—a well-organised establishment of agencies at its numerous stations abroad—exclusive docking accommodation for its large ships at the principal ports of India—extensive main or trunk lines of communication, established in the principal tracks of Oriental intercourse, and to which any further extension of postal communication must of necessity subserve, as auxiliaries or feeders,—there is scarcely room for entertaining a reasonable doubt that the Peninsular and Oriental Company will be able to maintain its ground, both in respect to the Services in which it is already engaged, as well as in the undertaking of any further Services which may be required in the East, against any boná fide competition, and on the same legitimate, and, therefore, invulnerable basis on which its present connexion with the Contract Packet Service has been established,—namely, its capability of maintaining the present, and undertaking such future Services, with the greatest advantage to the public interests, both as to efficiency and economy.
Benefits of the Contract Packet Service, and of Steam Communications with our Dependencies and Foreign Countries.
The advantage, as regards economy of the public expenditure, of maintaining these communications by means of private enterprise under Contract, instead of by Government vessels, managed by Government establishments, has now been fully recognised.