The claim that the Post Office should be charged with the _whole_ expense must be considered as barred by the simple fact, that few of the mail-packets were established either by the Post Office, or for merely postal purposes, their expense being far beyond what such requirements could justify. "To assume that those packets were really established for Post Office purposes is to charge the Government with the most absurd extravagance. The West India packets, for instance, were established at a cost of £240,000 per annum, though the utmost return that was expected from letters was £40,000, leaving the £200,000 a clear deficit. "Nor is this comparative uselessness for Post Office purposes confined to the packets to remote places; the great cost, even of the home packets, results from causes independent of the Post Office."[262] Indeed, as was stated in the House of Lords by Lord Monteagle, who, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, arranged the first contracts for the mail steamers, "the expense of the packet service, which was said to swallow up the whole of the revenue now derived from the Post Office, had no more to do with the Penny Postage than the expense of the war in Afghanistan or China. It was as distinct from the Post Office as the expense of the army or navy. The great packet communication between Great Britain and the British North American Colonies was undertaken upon much higher principles than any connected with mere consideration of revenue. It was felt by the Government of Lord Melbourne that it was not wise to allow the only rapid mode of communication between the British possessions in North America and the mother country to be dependent upon the means afforded by the United States. Means were accordingly taken to establish a line of communication of our own. He admitted that this was not done, except at a very heavy expense; but it was not right to place that expense to the account of the Post Office."[263] Still, it is obvious that, as these packets do postal work, some portion of their expense ought to be charged to the Post Office, and the question of _amount_ is what has really to be determined. Upon this question it is necessary to explain that, upon a suggestion from the Treasury, viz., that the amount should be "measured in each case by the amount of ocean postage received,"[264] the following is the rule observed:-- Whenever the amount of ocean postage is below the cost of the line of packets by which the service is performed, the Post Office debits itself, for packet service, with a charge just equal to the ocean postage received. In the only two lines of packets (viz., those between England and France, and England and Belgium), in which the ocean postage exceeds the cost, the department debits itself with the whole expense of the packet service.