Eves when Sir Thomas Sutherland has not very much to say to the shareholders in the great P. & O. Company j at their half-yearly meetings, he says it in a way that commands attention, and that makes his speeches good reading even to those who are not fortunate enough to form a portion of his constitnency. He began his speech at the 118th half-yearly meeting of the Company on ihe 4th ult. by announcing that the Company had just gone through one of the periodical crises which attach to its history, and which resulted this time in the Company's securing £330,000 a year from the British' Government for seven years from next year, in return for which it undertakes to carry on the India, China, and Australia mail service during that period; and while the payment it is to' receive is reduced by £20,000 a! year, the mails are to be accelerated by nearly two days to-Inidia, and between four and five days to Australia and China, Sic Thomas. pointed out that a contract of- this kind for seven years is in the nature of 2 gamble, for no-one can foretell what. the conditions of trade will be during the next seven or eight years. It seems, indeed, almost certain that before that time expires the mails for China at any rate will be carried by the trans-Siberian railroad. "What we do know," said Sir Thomas, is that the Company must earn about 2} millions above and beyond the amount which they will be paid by H.M.'s Government in connection with this service, We must obtain that 2} millions from the ordinary sources of traffic in order to make this contract remunerative. Well, gentlemen, hitherto, happily,. our estimates have been fairly adequate not only to ensure a moderate return to the shareholders, but also to ensure that scope for the improvement of.the service which I hold to be so eminently desirable in connection with a public dertaking such as we are engaged Tudeed the shareholders may well be grateful to Sir Thomas for the management which keeps the service always better than the contract, which is constantly improving the fleet, and which yet pays them a steady 74 per cent, Sir Thomas then noticed an innovation which is really a return to the system in force before the war of 1870. There is to be a regular weekly com-{munication with Marseilles outward and homeward. Brindisi will still be the Mediterranean mail port for the Eastern services; but passengers will be able to avoid the long sea voyage by Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay by means of the short railway journey to Marseilles instead of the long railway journey to Brindisi On the other hand the prospects of Brindisi as a passenger port are to be improved by the putting on the lina between Italy and Egypt of two greyhounds, the Zsis and Osiris, which will carry the mails, 2 limited number of passengers, and no cargo, and will bring Egypt' within four days of London, Sir Thomas then pointed out that the general business of the Company had expanded so much that whereas not seventy years ago the Government subsidy was more than a quarter of the total revenue, it was now {not more than an eighth. He explained that the employment of lascars in the Company's ships was not from motives of economy, but because the ships could not be run in the trap manned exclusively with Europeans.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.