OCEAN MAILS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 155, 1 July 1907, Page 7

OCEAN MAILS.

jSE -'ALL BED" MAIL ROUTE. ,„„- Our Special Correspondent.) LOXDOX, May 24. sda, r T taes" thinks, to a commit iee As the proposition looks it 01 'p'rtLnly mpraticable. In order to £ t on'the Atlantic of twentyr T fawts or twenty-five knots, vessels J of the Luiitania and Maurebe Becessarj-. would Zn on a large to beg.n •fh and State-aid that would be 1 oreto futility. There will not be STpassengers on the Canadian .route to f or the speed of Lusitamas for many lion" day to come. It is problematical, . farf whether the express Ounarders LjU find them on the New York route. •He negotiation of the Pacific as a secft on of an all-British route to Australasia is ev*n more hopeless—to give decrees to despair. A sea-speed of twentyone knots would work out to a passage o f fourteen days from Vancouver to Sydney* and to ca-rry coal—and the pasto pay for it—for a voyage of ii days a boat of about the Lusitania's gize and class would be necessary. By B o manner of showing could boats of that size he made to pay. so that quite ' clearly the project is impracticable also on the Pacific without heavy subsidies. In the interests of the Empire, it might be worth while to pay these subsidies; hot care will have to be taken lest in .ottr sentimental regard for the Empire we do not over-ride the real development. The Imperial Government is already cotnjnitted to one great shipping enterprise in the two express Cunarders, and to subsidise a Canadian service of similar ships ■would hardly be fair to the Cunard share-

lolders. Then, again, the' British capita.]

invested in the Peninsular ajid Oriental Company and the Orient Royal Mail Company —to name no others —deserves some consideration. This is tie money,

it has to be remembered, which has devejoped'the Australian service so far, and developed it with no State-aid worth meaknig about. British mail subventions Tiave never been notoriously generous, at any rate. Beyond all this, too, there is always the possibility of a development .ohthe Dastern trade which would permit of a greatly accelerated Australian ..service between Brindisi and Colombo. A ran like that is, in fact, much more like It to pay soon for a heavy coal bill than any on the projected Western route. In aU the circumstances (concludes the "•TngißKriiig Times) we are inclined to be.glaitiat the matter is to be reserved idi the consideration of experts. - On tiuV subject of an "All Red" route ■to .Australasia, the shipping editor of the 'P&ily Telegraph" is likewise sceptical. He says:—"lt is estimated that iie Lnsitania ■will require to burn seme-

filing like 1200 ox 1300 tons of coal a

day on her trip to New York in order , io do twenty-five knots. But the run from . (Vancouver to Sydney at the same speed would take eleven or twelve days, and at ■ the same "tate of coal consumption the vessel -would want close on 16,000 tons. .That, of course, would be impossible, unless she was very much bigger than the new Cunarders, and the bigger the ship ,':* he.greater the cost of driving-"her, even supposing you could ever catch up to jour coal requirements. Sir Wilfrid laurier, tviser than some of his colleagues ,at the Colonial Conference, talked about an e%hteen-knot service on the Pacific, but Australia and New Zealand were indisposed to look at that. Some day •B-e may reach a stage when the coal problem will he got out of the way. At present it seems to offer an insuperable difficulty to very high speeds in the Pacific, and, indeed, almost everywhere else ■ttan on the comparatively short Atlantic Towage."

"V. AM) O." Erom the interim report of the Penin-

snlar and Oriental bteam Navigation Company, published on Saturday, we learn thai, the depression, which, has exist- : ed in the Eastern shipping trade during the past eighteen months still exists. / . Although no figures are supplied, the . ■ company states that its ordinary freight returns for the last sis months show a considerable shrinkage as compared with ihe: receipts for the same period in the >;,■jresions year. This applies more par- - J tiadarly to the Indian trade and to the inter-colonial business between India, ■ China, and Japan. The Australian busi■aess; has improved, but the complaint is made of the unremunerative character '.(so far as mail steamers are concerned) -JOi rates for refrigerated produce. In at-"-t™*?™ 8 to & au S e prospects for the ! v twrfrc-ffloirth, the directors foresee a ! considerable addition to disbursements, ; v-owing to the rise in coal and in the cost t of material of every description required -•for marine work, and add: "Whether ,j this -will be met by such, an improvement ! the Indian traffic as the state of crops ■■"Sγ* to prognosticate is a pro- "' ° f great interest to all concerned." ■M net result of the half-year's trading, -- it is consoling to observe, has not affectI ed drndends, the usual interim payments «ing recommended at the ra.te of 5 per <»!*, on the preferred stock and 7 per cent on the deferred. The company is •' DOM? carrying on an interim mail contract for a period of three years, which will 1 ■ c °n 31st January nest. The Post Office having for tenders to new mail services -aath India Unna. and Australia, the directors submitted m August last a comprehensive ?*nder for the work in question, which aay be said to have been for nearly two*™rda of a century in the company's flands. Owing to various causes, the J"»l decision with regard to this matter to *r> arTiVed at a few a S°> ~ :^LrrjtnCVOTS are now enabled to antheir tender, as put forward ™;-Uf** services has been accepted. " W atlOn of and - at the same - «-•