ith British statesmen that the
packet service should be self-sustaining; nor have they had any
evidence to believe that steam companies could live on the postal
receipts. It is evident from the following that the packet system is
sustained without any reference whatever to the postal income, and for
commercial, political, and social purposes alone; only using the
income so far as it goes as a part of the contributions by the people
to the general treasury. It says:

"Your Lordships have seen from our Report that in framing these
contracts various objects have entered into the consideration of
the Government, the cost of which ought not in our opinion to be
charged upon the revenues of the General Post Office. A simple
comparison of the receipts and expenditure upon some of the lines
is in itself sufficient to prove this. If the Post Office is to be
considered as a department producing revenue, it is not to be
supposed that a line of vessels which costs the State L240,000 a
year, and brings in no more than L56,002, (as is the case with the
West-Indian packets,) or one for which L25,000 is annually paid,
and which returns little more than one fifth of that sum, (as the
Pacific line,) can be maintained as a part of its machinery; and,
in fact, the contracts for many of the services have been made
without reference to any estimate or opinion on the part of the
Post Master General of their probable value as postal lines."

It thus becomes abundantly evident from the Reports of Parliamentary
Committees, from the "Acts of Parliament," and from the practice of
the Admiralty and Post Office Departments, as well as from the
unvarying experiences of twenty-four years, that the steam mail packet
system of Great Britain was primarily adopted, and ever since
sustained as the choicest means of giving to that nation the
irresistible control of the world. Watching this system from the germ
to its present maturity, we have seen the overshadowing tree reach
higher and higher, and the circle of each year's growth expand more
and more, until the outer ring now embraces the whole civilized and
savage world. An additional evidence of this arrives this very day.
The Atlantic brings intelligence (_New-York papers, Nov. 22d_) that
Great Britain has just completed another mail contract, by which the
Peninsular and Oriental Company are to run a third semi-monthly
service to India and Ch