It therefore follows, looking at the question as a merely financial one, that the establishment and maintenance of these communications, so far from being any burden on the national exchequer, is a gain to it; their cost being more than returned to it in postage of letters, _and revenue derived from the increase of industry and consumption created by their means_; in addition to which the country is, or ought to be, a gainer, to the extent of not less than a quarter of a million sterling in a reduction of naval expenditure, seeing that a large reserve steam navy, promptly available for the national defence, if required, is provided by these great steam navigation enterprises. That reserve navy also, while forming so important an auxiliary to the means of national defence in case of war, is operating as one of the most effective instruments for the maintenance of peace, by promoting the extension of foreign commercial intercourse--thereby tending to bind nations closer together by the strongest of all ties, that of mutual dependence on each other for their material wants. Assuming these facts and conclusions to be correct, instead of the expense of these communications being grudged, it ought to be regarded as the most beneficial outlay of public money that occurs in the whole balance-sheet of our national expenditure. Although, in the preceding remarks, the benefits of these improved postal communications have been considered only in reference to their financial, commercial, and political importance, it ought not to be forgotten that they also involve social benefits, of equal, if not superior consideration.[15] How few are the instances, comparatively speaking, where a family in the United Kingdom is to be met with who has not one or more of its members absent in our distant dependencies, engaged in industrial pursuits, or in the public service of their country. To lessen the hardships of absence and separation to so large a portion of the community, by facilitating to them the means of social intercommunication, reducing, as it were, the distance which separates them (as has been done in many cases, to less than one-fourth of what it formerly was) is surely an object worthy of national sympathy and solicitude, and claiming to be supported by national means. FOOTNOTES: [1] See question 2169, p. 45, and 2187, p. 48; also 2254, and 2255. [2] Now reduced to £20,500. [3] Note, the sum of £3500 was deducted subsequently by the Admiralty, in consequence of their superseding the small vessel engaged in the Ionian Mail Service by packets of their own; and this sum became thereby reduced to £28,500. [4] This sum, of £148,000 for 70,080 miles, is at the rate of 42s. 6d. per mile. If the same amount for passage-money and parcels which the East India Company’s packets earned, as shown by their return made to Parliament, (No. 746,) for the same year, 1844-45, in which the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s proposal was made, namely--