E.—No. 3.

No. 1. Copt of a Despatch from His Grace the Duke of Buckingham to Governor Sir G. Geet. K.C.B. Sic,— Downing Street, 17th December, 1867. I have the honor to transmit to you a copy of a letter addressed to this department by desire of the Postmaster-General, forwarding a copy of the new contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for the conveyance of the India and China Mails, and also a copy of the Time Table showing the movements of the several Packets. The letter from the Post Office shows so clearly the manner in which the Colony under your Government is affected by the new arrangements, that I need only refer you to it, and leave you to make the public fully aware of them. This contract will commence on the Ist of February next. I have, &c, Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.B. Buckingham and Chandos.

Enclosure in No. 1. Mr. Tillbt to Sir F. Eooees. Sic,— General Post Office, 10th December, 1867. With reference to my letter of the Oth instant, in which I informed you that the Postmaster-G-eneral had concluded a new contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for the conveyance of the India and China Mails, I am directed by His Grace to forward to you some copies of the new contract. In transmitting these papers, I am to call attention to the following points, in which the new contract differs from that now in force :— The mails for India will, under the now contract, be despatched from London on fixed days in every week, on the morning of every Saturday, for transmission via Southampton, and on the evening of the following Friday, for transmission via Marseilles, and each mail will be conveyed to Bombay instead of alternately to Bombay and Calcutta. The mails for Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and China, will be despatched on every alternate Saturday and Friday, and the service, instead of terminating at Shanghai, will be continued to Yokohama. In like manner, the homeward packets will leave Bombay on a fixed day in every week, and will leave Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Point de Galle, on fixed days in every alternate week. Mails for the several Australian Colonies will be despatched from London with every alternate mail to Point de Galle. Those mails will, consequently, be conveyed from Galle to Sydney, and from Sydney to Galle, once in every fourth week, instead of once in a calendar month, as at present. In order to accelerate as much as possible the service between Marseilles and Alexandria, the packet on that route will go direct, via the Straits of Messina, instead of by way of Malta. With a like object of accelerating the China Mail Service, the packets on the line between Point de Galle and Hong Kong will no longer call at Penang, and the stay at Singapore will be limited to twelve hours of daylight. The Postmaster-General requests that the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos will have the goodness to communicate with the officers administering the governments of Malta, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Labuan, Hong Kong, the Australian Colonies, and New Zealand, informing them of these new arrangements. In connection with these arrangements, I am to observe that, although the packet from Marseilles will not call at Malta, there will be a weekly service between the United Kingdom and that Colony via Southampton. Further, with respect to Penang, which is also omitted from the new scheme, I am to state that the correspondence for that Island will be sent in the mails for Singapore. I enclose some copies of a Time Table showing the proposed movements of the India, China, and Australia Mail Packets for the ensuing year. The Postmaster-General has already, in the letter of the 6th instant above referred to, drawn attention to the effect which the new arrangements will have on the correspondence for Mauritius. I have, &c, Sir F. Eogers, Bart. J. Tilley.

Sub-Enclosure in No. 1. EAST INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN MAILS. Aeticles op Ageeement made this nineteenth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, between the Most Noble James, Duke of Montroso, Her Majesty's Postmaster-G-eneral for the time being, of the one part, and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company of the other part: Witness that the Company,

PAPERS RELATIVE TO CONVEYANCE OF MAILS VIA SUEZ.