[558] 3_s._ a lb. for letters; 1_s._ 8_d._ when carried by other lines (_Rep. Com._, 1860, xiv, p. 5; 1868-69, vi, pp. iii-v; _Rep. P. G._, 1887, pp. 4-5; _Acc. & P._, 1887, xlix, 34, pp. 3-4; _Parl. Deb._, 4th ser., cxxii, coll. 385-401). [559] _Acc. & P._, 1852-53, xcv, 1660, p. 59; 1887, xlix, 34, p. 7; _Rep. P. G._, 1907, pp. 5-6. A general review of the packet service in 1907 shows us that most of the contracts for the home packets are terminable on six months' notice, a few only on twelve months' notice. The Holyhead and Kingstown service is exceptional, not being terminable until 1917, or on twelve months' notice after 31st March, 1916. This is by far the most important of any of the home systems and costs £100,000, to be reduced to £80,000 in 1917. The contract for the conveyance of mails between Dover and Calais is terminable on twelve months' notice and cost £25,000 for the postal year 1906-07. The payments for the use of the other boats between the United Kingdom and Europe are comparatively small, amounting in 1906-07 to £3780 only, and all these contracts are terminable on six months' notice. The contracts for the conveyance of the mails to the two Americas are as a rule terminable on six or twelve months' notice, but an exception has been made in the case of the Cunard Company with whom and under peculiar circumstances a twenty years' agreement was made in 1902. In 1906-07 the cost of the conveyance of the mails between the United Kingdom and North and South America was £198,488. The African contracts are all terminable on three, six, or twelve months' notice, and amounted in 1906-07 to £32,988. The carriage of the mails to India, Australasia, and China for the year ending 31st March, 1907, cost £402,162, but this has since been diminished by a reduction in the subsidies to the Peninsular and Oriental Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.[560] [560] _Rep. P. G._, 1907, pp. 5-6, 52-53. The total expenditure for packet boats increased enormously after 1840, and this increase in cost kept down the net revenue of the Post Office for many years after the introduction of penny postage. In 1830, the packet expenses amounted only to £108,305, in 1846, to £723,604, and in 1860, to £869,952. They reached the maximum point of £1,056,798 in 1869, and from that time until 1890, when they were £665,375, there has been on the whole a gradual diminution. During the year ending 31st March, 1892, they reached the sum of £701,081, for the postal year 1900-01 they were £764,804, and during the year 1905-06 they had diminished to £687,109.[561] [561] _Rep. Commrs._, 1830, xiv, app., p. 376; 1847, lxii, pp. 5-6; _Rep. P. G._, 1868, p. 28; 1875, p. 39; 1901, app., p. 82; 1907, p. 95. CHAPTER VIII RATES AND FINANCE