receive Coal.[B] |
| |
PULO LABUAN | |
TO SINGAPORE | To receive Coal, land & receive Mails. |
| |
SINGAPORE | |
TO MALACCA | To land & receive Mails. |
| |
MALACCA | |
TO PENANG | To receive Coal, land & receive Mails. |
| |
PENANG TO | |
CEYLON | Ditto Ditto |
---------------+-----------------------------------------+

[Note A: Receiving at Ceylon, the Outward Overland Mail
from England, and returning therewith to China.]

[Note B: The Borneo Coal Mines would also serve to keep the
Hong-Kong, Singapore, and Penang Stations supplied with Fuel
for Steam Vessels carrying the Mails between Hong Kong and Suez
direct.

MEM.--I have adopted an average rate of seven miles per hour as a fair
estimate of the speed that well-appointed Steam Vessels, of moderate
size and power, will be enabled to accomplish and maintain, throughout
the proposed route, at all seasons of the year; for, during the whole
distance from Penang to Aden, and _vice versa_, neither monsoon, from
the course steered, becomes at any period a directly adverse wind; an
advantage which the route hitherto observed does not possess. Assuming
that the Honourable East-India Company continue the management of the
Bombay line, and that the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company are encouraged to render their operations more comprehensive, by
the establishment of Branch Steamers between Ceylon and Singapore, to
which latter Port Her Majesty's Steam Vessels on the China Station could
convey the Mails from Hong Kong, this all-important object might,
without difficulty, be attained. The advantages to the Straits'
Settlements, consequent on the adoption of improved arrangements,
require no comment; and the _practicability_ of effecting a very
considerable acceleration of the communication with China, is evident
from the simple fact, that the average interval which has occurred in
the transmission of letters from China, by the last twe