If by the “benefits derived by the company from a train,” the Report means the amount received for passengers and parcels by a mail train, I agree with those who think that the conveyance of passengers and parcels, by such a train, may be of no benefit to a company. If those passengers and parcels did not go by the mail train, they would go by some other train, probably at a more convenient time to the company, and nothing is gained by sending them by the mail. But, apart from this, I should imagine, that the railway companies will, one and all, willingly accept any proposal from the Post Office to convey the mails, based on my “estimate of the actual running cost, with the addition of compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected by Post Office requirements, together with a full allowance for profit.” I am informed, that the claims of the Post Office upon the railway companies are continually increasing. The old mail coach carried only one Post Office officer, the guard, who also assisted in the performance of the duties of the coach. But the Post Office claims of the railway companies, under penalty, to carry, free of charge, all guards, clerks, and officers of the Post Office, “when employed in fetching the bags, or in returning back from carrying the same, and the inspectors of mails and such other officers and servants of the Post Office as the Postmaster-General shall from time to time require.” Thus an unlimited number of free passengers may be conveyed at the Postmaster-General’s discretion, and however unreasonable the number may be, the company have no redress. It is to be observed also, that instead of assisting the train, these passengers require assistance from the officers of the company. The Post Office insists that the porters of a railway are bound to place their bags in their vans and remove them from their stations. The nonpayment of fares for these officials is not the only objection to their conveyance. Although deriving no profit from their carriage, the companies, under a recent decision, are declared to be liable to make them compensation for any accident, or injury they may sustain whilst travelling; and recently on the North-Western line, a sum of £1,200 had to be paid to an officer of the Post Office who was accidentally hurt. Was this the case with the old mail coaches? “It constantly happens,” says the Report, “that the department is prevented from increasing postal facilities by the refusal of companies to accept rates equal to, and often exceeding, the charges made to the public for the transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary light goods as are frequently sent by passenger trains.”