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 cannot do now, because the present charges upon steamers are no heavy this will be modified by adopting the Kraw route.

21.—The extra service required to give a weekly mail to Calcutta by a single extra steamer running twice a month between Aden and Point de Galle, might be well undertaken by the P. and O. Company, as well as the whole service (by a lower clam of steamer, however, on the China side, than is at present employed) between Ceylon and Kraw, and the Gulf of Siam and Hongkong. The Companies running the direct lines of steamers between Calcutta and Hongkong via Singapore and the line between Calcutta via Akyab, &c., and Moulmein might, advantageously to themselves and to the public, amalgamate and run one steamer twice a month direct to Kraw, to meet the China and Europe steamers returning direct to Calcutta; two from Calcutta via Akyab. Rangoon, and Maulmein, to Kraw, returning via those ports.

The railway should be a separate Company, and there should be a condition in their contract which would scarcely require a guarantee to that effect.

22.—With these arrangements carried out, we may incidentally mention that the telegraph, instead of being submarine from Rangoon, should be carried along the coast from Maulmein, with a junction with the railway telegraph at Kraw, and also a junction with the Rangoon and Tougoo telegraph at Sittang, thus giving another line of telegraph communication with Calcutta, by which English news, and China news, may be transmitted from Kraw.

23.—The arrangement which might be made with the government of Siam for the grant of land, &c., has not formed a subject for our discussion, as, with the present liberal-minded and far-seeing monarch on the throne of Bangkok, to whom the advantages which must result to himself and his people, by carrying out this project, will be at once obvious, we see no difficulty on this point.

24.—We have thus laboured to prove, and we think have done so satisfactorily, that, as a mere speculation, the construction of a railway across the Isthmus of Kraw will be