ICE:
GEN. RUSK'S VIEWS: SPEECH OF HON. T. B. KING: COMMITTEE OF
INVESTIGATION, 1849: NEW INVESTIGATION ORDERED IN 1853, AND
INSTRUCTIONS: LORD CANNING'S REPORT AND ITS RECOMMENDATIONS: GREAT
BRITAIN WILL NOT ABANDON HER MAIL SYSTEM: THE NEW AUSTRALIAN
LINE: TESTIMONY OF ATHERTON AND MURRAY: MANY EXTRACTS FROM THE
REPORT: STEAM INDISPENSABLE: NOT SELF-SUPPORTING: THE MAIL
RECEIPTS WILL NOT PAY FOR IT: RESULT OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM: ANOTHER
NEW SERVICE TO INDIA AND CHINA: SHALL WE RUN THE POSTAL AND
COMMERCIAL RACE WITH GREAT BRITAIN? CANADA AND THE INDIES.

It is admitted that it is the clear and unquestionable duty of the
Government to establish ample foreign mail facilities for the nation,
and that the only means of accomplishing this is by guaranteeing a
liberal allowance for a long term of years for the transport of the
mails, and paying for the same from the general treasury of the
country. We will, therefore, now examine the British ocean steam mail
system, and shall see that the practice of that great nation fully
corroborates and sustains the views which have been advanced in the
preceding chapters.

The steamship policy of that nation has not been treated as a matter
of slight or secondary importance. British statesmen from the earliest
days of the development of marine steam power saw the influence which
it was likely to exert in the revolutions of commerce and the control
of the nations of the world, and determined, with the sagacious
foresight and the firm, fixed purpose for which they are
distinguished, that it should be at once inaugurated as the great
instrument of individual wealth and national power. They properly
conceived that the nation which used this transforming agent most
freely in commerce, defenses and diplomacy would unquestionably exert
a high controlling influence over the nations of the earth, and make
every land tributary to its wealth and power. The end justifies the
effort, and the few temporary sacrifices and insignificant
expenditures which have been made. The British nation launched at once
into an extended foreign mail system which has been twenty years
maturing and untouched, and which, on a small annual expenditure, has
given it the profitable control of every trade and every market on the
face of the globe. It was wisely conceded that a long period would be
necessary to make the great experiment of marine steam mails, and that
term was granted