As the packet service remained during the whole of this period in the hands of the Admiralty, the action of the Post Office upon it was necessarily indirect and limited; as is strikingly exemplified by the fact that in the year 1857 the contract with the West Indian Packet Company was renewed not only without my knowledge, but without that even of the Postmaster-General. The inconvenience of such a course appeared distinctly enough two years later when Mr. Anthony Trollope, being sent out to the West Indies on other business, was able, although a landsman, to propose a scheme of routes for the mail-packet at once more convenient and more economical than the existing routes, and, in the opinion of the hydrographer to the Admiralty, superior to them even in a nautical point of view. This scheme nevertheless had to wait long for adoption, because no satisfactory arrangement could be made with the directors of the company; and their renewed contract had yet four years to run.[148] Moreover, the omission to introduce into the renewed contract efficient stipulations to secure punctuality led to its natural consequence; some of the packets worked by this company, viz., those between St. Thomas, Colon, and Greytown, being the least punctual in all the mail-packet service; while the most punctual were those between Devonport and the Cape of Good Hope, belonging to the Union Steamship Company, into whose contract such stipulations had been introduced in their strongest form, and which in the year 1859 made every one of its voyages within the appointed time.[149] The unwise renewal of the West Indian Mail Packet contract naturally led to demands for similar facilities elsewhere. The fact is, as already intimated, that the West Indian packet service was established not for postal, but for political purposes, and the term Royal mail-packets was a misnomer, which, while it could not blind our neighbours, tended much, as has already been shown, to mystify ourselves. The chief effect at this period was that other colonies, less favoured hitherto, began to put in claims to which, under the circumstances, it was difficult to reply; those of Australia, then rapidly rising in importance through the discovery of their gold-fields, naturally taking the lead. In the consideration of this matter the Post Office was called on to take a part, and it was at length decided that a monthly line of steamers in each direction should be maintained, half the very heavy expense to be defrayed by the mother country, and the other half by the colonies conjointly; the several contributions of these latter to be proportionate to their respective amounts of correspondence and the distance performed in their respective services. South Australia, indeed, refused at first to bear any part of this expense, save on conditions which we deemed quite inadmissible; but, as the Home Government stood firm, resistance was eventually abandoned.