Regarding their trade with Japan, se he stated that their share of the trade from Bombay to Japanese ports had been practically wiped out. This, he believed, was owing to the fact that the Japanese Government had forced their shipowners to increase their departures from Bombay to such an extent that, so far us the freight to Japan was concerned, they had been completely left, out in the cold. In connexion with their Colonial trade between Bombay and China, a great extent of the trade consisted in the shipment of cotton yarn, which was manufactured in Bombay, as if Bombay were a second Manchester. That trade had been somewhat doll in China during the past year, anil so far as he knew, for the first time in history, 50,000 bales of Bombay cotton yarn had this their way into Europe. ter of somewhat curious speculation to' the philosophic mind whether this cirenmstance was a mere incident or whether it was a prophetic note of the influence of cheap labour in the Far' East, of which we might a great deal later on. Altogether, h that the prospects of shipping in the way of freight were at the present _moment of a brilliant character. Coming to their passenger traffics, he said that ti it receipts amounted to £1,151,022, increase of about £64,000 over the previous year. They would remember that the previous year gave an increase of £100,000. Their expenditure had been higher than it was io the previous} year owing to the price of enol, port ges, Suez Canal dues and handling. Their mileage had been greater than ever, amounting, as it did, to nearly 3,200,000 nautical miles. He went on to congratulate the proprietors on the settlement of the new mail contract, hich, he suid, defined in a great mea-sre their business for the next seven years. Their proposals had been accepted, after twelve months' consideration, with no negotiation whatever. It was, matter of some historic interest to find that the first mail contract which we had ever had anything to do with, some thirty years ago, paid them much better for a smaller and inferior service.
They had saved the Government in the various contracts which they had made that time something like £200,000 year, and they had at the same time, accelerated the movement of the Indian rails by not less than a whole week, the China mails by " whole fortnight and the Australian mails by even a little longer.
was in the interest of the mail service that they should contract for certain new ships, and they were now building three new ships of the Moldavia type, and another for the Aden and Bombay service.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.