Page:The empire and the century.djvu/351

 Post-Office; and that the service should be provided by competitive tender.

1834. The General Steam Navigation Company had £17,000 a year for conveying mails between London and Rotterdam, and London and Hamburg.

1837. £29,000 a year paid for mails to Lisbon and Gibraltar.

1839. A fortnightly mail between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston established by contract between the Postmaster-General and Samuel Cunard, of Halifax, at £60,000 a year.

1840. A contract made for mail steamers to Malta, Corfu, and Alexandria.

1845. Mediterranean mail contract extended to Suez, Bombay, Ceylon, Calcutta, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.

1850. The Cunard contract renewed at £178,340, and certain contingent allowances in addition; weekly, instead of fortnightly, trips being required, and the ports made Boston and New York alternately.

1858. Loss to revenue by packet service, £325,000.

1855. (War.) The packets numbered 110, and the cost was £800,000 a year.

1889–1890. £665,375.

1905. £720,000.

It goes without saying that shipping subsidies have no necessary relation to the quantity of a nation's mails. The fact that a particular State has little correspondence with other States or colonies oversea is the very reason why it should lavish more and more money in subsidies, so as to create trade. Bearing this in mind, the following figures are significant: