“‘We, the undersigned, being desirous of encouraging the establishment of a line of first-class steam-packets, offering increased facilities and advantages for the transit of passengers and goods to and from Australia and the different important States in the Pacific Ocean, and being deeply impressed with the advantages of the route by the way of the Isthmus of Panama, since the establishment of the railroad at that place connecting the two oceans,—hereby signify our approval of the projected British and Australian Direct Screw Steam Packet Company, for the purpose of carrying out the line of communication to those parts in the most efficient manner. (Signed)—R. GLADSTONE & CO., HORROCKS, JACKSON & CO., ROBERT SMITH & CO., ROBERT GARDNER, SAMUEL MENDEL, ROBT. BARBOUR & BROTHERS, JOHN PENDER & CO., GEORGE FRASER, SON, & CO., HENRY B. JACKSON, R. I. FARBRIDGE & CO., B. LIEBERT, PRESCOTT, BROTHERS, & CO., THOS. CARDWELL & CO., OSWALD STEVENSON & CO., J. A. TURNER & CO.’” It is most desirable that whatever line is selected for conveying the mails should be as far as possible remunerative, in order to enable Government to fix the rates of postage as low as possible. The present charges are preposterously high. A letter by a sailing ship, which may be from ninety to one hundred days on the passage, costs eightpence, if under half an ounce. By steam and overland mail, it is from a shilling to twentypence, if under a quarter of an ounce in weight, for what to a man, whose caligraphy is not of a diminutive order, or who cannot command “bank” or “foreign post” paper, must be only half a letter. _Cheap_ postage for the newly settled population of Australia, and for their friends in this country, is as essential as regular and expeditious mails are to the mercantile communities in both countries. We must remark, too, that newspapers and trade circulars are as much required to be conveyed expeditiously as mercantile letters. By the last overland mail a fortunate few received despatches _via_ Marseilles in sixty days. The bulk of the mail, consisting of newspapers and letters from emigrants, &c., was not delivered until the arrival of the steamer at Southampton, nearly seventy days from her leaving the colony.