Liverpool and Boston Line.Knots. Fath.
109 voyages outwards, average speed 9 2
112 voyages homewards, average speed 10 2
Liverpool and New York Line.
109 voyages outwards, average speed 11 1
113 voyages homewards, average speed11 7

Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.

Knots.Fath.
On the Australian Line9 7
On the Calcutta and Suez Line9 7
On the Bombay and Suez Line92
On the Southampton and Alexandria and Marseilles and Alexandria Lines 100

The following averages are taken respectively from the reports published in 1865 of the British Royal Mail (West India) Company, and of the French Messageries Maritimes Company:

Knots.Fath.
Between Southampton and West Indies 105
Between Southampton and Brazils95

The French Company give an average speed on their line to India of 9 knots 4 fathoms per hour for the years 1863 and 1864, but add “it is, for a general average, rather high.”

[352] See [Appendix No. 23, p. 639].

[353] The details of the different rates per mile which have hitherto been paid to the Peninsular and Oriental Company were as follows:—

s.d.
The first India and China contract (1844 to 1853) was paid for at171 per mile.
The second (1853 to 1866) was first taken at62 per mile.
and was afterwards reduced to55 per mile.
The first portion of the Bombay service, namely, between Bombay and Aden, distance 79,872 miles per annum, was taken in 1854, at62 per mile.
The extension of this service to Suez increased the distance to 142,656 miles per annum, and reduced the rate to42 per mile.
And the subsequent arrangements in the Mediterranean brought the payment for the complete fortnightly line, now existing, down to the average of27 per mile.
The Australian service between Ceylon and Sydney was paid for, from 1861 to 1865, at215 per mile.
The same service was taken in 1865, at190 per mile.
And the directors offered to double it for a sum that would reduce the rate to136 per mile.
India, China and Japan contract67 per mile.
Australian, Ceylon to Melbourne144 per mile.

[354] The following return gives the annual receipts and expenditure of the Company from 1856 to 1874 inclusive, by which it will be seen that, while the revenue was less in 1874 than in 1860, the expenditure had increased, and that there was a deficiency in 1867 of no less than 177,047l.