[See [p. 291.]]
Minute relative to Panama Route to Australia.
The Postmaster-General.
1. In my minute of the 15th instant, on the subject of the Treasury Minute of the 11th (referred to your Lordship for report), I recommended that the consideration of that part of the Treasury Minute which relates to an additional postal service to Australia, by way of Panama, should be postponed, in order to admit of the immediate call for tenders for the continuance of the service by way of Suez.
2. Your Lordship and the Treasury having been pleased to adopt this recommendation, and the advertisements for tenders for the latter service having been issued, I now beg to submit my views on the proposed additional monthly service by way of Panama.
3. The question is divisible under two heads—
1st. Whether it is necessary that the postal communication with Australia should be more frequent than at present, viz., once a month? and
2nd. If so, is the Panama route the best for the additional mails?
4. As regards the first of these questions, I need not remind your Lordship that the sea postage of all the correspondence with the Australian colonies, including New Zealand, falls very far short of the cost of even a single line of packets. Such cost under the late contract having been £185,000 a year, while the total sea postage cannot be estimated at more than about £50,000 a year.
5. Having regard to the enormous additional loss which would result from the establishment of a second line of packets, and bearing in mind that the dissatisfaction so strongly felt, both here and in Australia, is not as to the infrequency of communication so much as to its irregularity, I am of opinion that the wishes of the public, whether at home or in the colonies, would be more effectually met by doing all that is practicable to improve the existing monthly service than by doubling the frequency of communication.