Consolidation of services in the Peninsular and Oriental Company.
It may be desirable here to explain that this company had previously undertaken a monthly service between Mauritius and Aden for a subsidy of 24,000l. per annum, and, an arrangement having been made that the route for the Australian mails should be viâ Mauritius, the performance of the mail service to both places was included in the 180,000l. But that route was soon afterwards abandoned, and a fresh agreement entered into between Government and the Peninsular and Oriental Company for a monthly line between Galle and Sydney, which, in conjunction with the Calcutta, Suez, and China lines, brought the Australian Colonies into direct communication not only with England, but also with India and China, and in fact with all the chief ports of the Indian seas. The subsidy for this service was 134,672l. per annum, the contract remaining in force until February 1866.
When fresh tenders were invited, the Peninsular and Oriental Company, having in this instance no competitor (though tenders were publicly invited), became again the contractors, agreeing to perform a monthly service for 120,000l. or a semi-monthly service for 170,000l. per annum, with boats which should attain a speed of 12 knots per hour on a measured mile, as a guarantee for an average speed of 10 knots per hour from port to port.
As there was a good deal of controversy about this time as to the average rate of speed of the vessels belonging to the principal mail companies, the table in the footnote[351] of the passages of steamers, for some years just previously to that period, belonging to the largest subsidized lines may be interesting and instructive.
Its present condition and fleet of ships.
From the thirty-fourth annual report of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, ending 30th of September, 1874, we learn that the paid-up capital amounted to 2,700,000l. and 800,000l. of debenture stock, also that it was the intention of the directors to call up in the course of the following year 10l. per share of their new stock, thus increasing the paid-up capital to 2,900,000l. apart from the debenture stock, so that the whole capital of the company would be 4,300,000l., of which 600,000l. would remain unpaid. This large amount of capital is distributed over more than 2000 shareholders, resident in almost every part of the world, and of whom more than one-third are ladies. Of this capital 3,757,000l. consists of stock in ships; 221,000l. of freehold and leasehold property in England, and docks and premises at Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong, and other stations; and 413,000l. in stock of coals and naval and victualing stores. Its fleet consists of fifty sea-going steamers, measuring 122,000 tons, and of 22,000 horse-power.[352] Of these steamers thirty-four are employed in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, India, and China services; four in the Australian service between Ceylon, Melbourne, and Sydney; five in the China and Japan local services; two are used solely as cargo vessels; and five are either under repair or alterations, being reserved to supply the place of others in case of accidents. The company also possess twelve steam-tugs of from 31 tons and 15 horse-power to 271 tons and 120 horse-power, stationed for its use in Egypt, Aden, Bombay, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Yokohama; and three cargo and coalhulks of 4417 tons, while it gives also permanent employment to 12,600 persons, exclusive of coal labourers and coolies on shore.
If my readers will cast their eyes on the map they will, by noting the ports at which these steamers call, form some idea of the extent and value of the services performed by this company. From England, crossing the Bay of Biscay along the shores of the Peninsula, to Gibraltar—the extreme limit of the original undertaking—its steamers now traverse the Mediterranean to Egypt, with a branch from Venice and Brindisi, and through the Canal to Suez, whence the most important line of steamers leave weekly for Bombay, with a further line from Bombay to Galle, and another direct from Suez to Galle, at which station the different lines diverge, one proceeding to Madras and Calcutta; another stretching far away across the Indian Ocean to King George’s Sound, Melbourne, and Sydney; and a third crossing the Bay of Bengal and through the Straits of Malacca, calling at Singapore, and traversing the China seas to Hong Kong, and, thence, to Swatow, Amoy, Foo-chow-foo, and Shanghai, stretching onwards to Yokohama, where the steamers of this line meet those of the Western world.
Terms of the contract now in force.
The principal conditions of the company’s present mail contract, as compared with that of 1870, are as follows:—The company is now required to despatch steamers weekly to convey the mails from and to Southampton and the various ports in the East by way of the Suez Canal; the Brindisi, or accelerated mail, to be conveyed as heretofore to and from Alexandria and by railway across Egypt; the company to have the option of substituting either Liverpool or Plymouth for Southampton as their mail port; the arrival of the outward mails at Eastern ports to be accelerated by twenty-four hours, and the penalties for late deliveries at terminal points to be quadrupled and made absolute, except in case of shipwreck or damage to machinery. The subsidy payable for the performance of these and other services is to be reduced from 450,000l., the sum agreed by the contract of 1870, to 430,000l. per annum, such sum to include the whole of the mail services rendered by the company.[353]
It is not my province to inquire whether these services could not be performed for a smaller grant of public money than that now paid. Opinions differ widely on such matters, and, as the steamers now traversing every sea increase in numbers, the feeling becomes more general, that a considerable saving might be effected in the conveyance of all the ocean mails. But the vast establishment this company is obliged to maintain, and the all-important and onerous duties it has to perform, at stations far apart and many thousand miles distant from headquarters, involves an outlay so great and embraces a risk so hazardous, that such a company may, on the other hand, well consider if the grant it receives, however large, is more than an equivalent for the services performed, especially, too, when we consider the stringent conditions of its contract.