On the 1st July, 1898, a new contract was drawn up for a combined Eastern and Australian service. The transit time between London and Bombay was limited to 14½ days and the annual subsidy was fixed at £330,000, of which £245,000 represented the payment for the service between Brindisi, India, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements and China. The last contract was entered into with the Company on the 1st July, 1908, for seven years. The transit time between Brindisi and Bombay was reduced to 11¼ days with an allowance of thirty-six hours in the monsoon, and the total subsidy was fixed at £305,000. The present contract with the P. and O. Company expires in 1922, and what fate the future has in store for the Suez Canal route we cannot tell. There has been much talk of a through railway from Calais to Karachi, and with the Channel tunnel completed this would mean a railway route from London to India. The cost, however, of transporting the Indian mail, which often consists of more than ten thousand bags, over this enormous distance by rail would probably be prohibitive. Under the International Postal Convention each country traversed would have the right to claim a territorial transit charge, and with fast steamers between Marseilles and Bombay the saving in time might not be so great as has been anticipated. Another competitor to the steamer service has appeared recently in the form of Aviation. Several proposals for an Air Mail Service between England and India have been made, but the success of long distance transits by air is not yet assured. It has been stated that the old familiar scenes at Port Said and Aden will soon be as unknown to the Eastern traveller as Table Bay and St. Helena. The old trade routes are to be revived again, no longer with slow and picturesque caravans, but with rushing trains and aeroplanes. Despite these prophecies the P. and O. continue to build new ships, they book passages even a year ahead, and are preparing to tender for a new mail contract. Is this mere contempt, is it optimism, or is it the adoption of Warren Hastings' motto: "Mens aequa in arduis"? CHAPTER XIV THE SEA POST OFFICE In 1859 the Postmaster-General, United Kingdom, announced that it had been determined to open the homeward-bound mails on board the steamers between Alexandria and Southampton and Alexandria and Marseilles, with a view to effect a partial or complete sorting of the letters and newspapers. He also suggested that the clerks entertained for this service might during the voyage out be employed in sorting the letters and newspapers contained in the mails despatched from England to India. At the same time he inquired whether the Government of India would be willing to bear their proportion of the cost of the scheme. The offer was declined on the ground that English clerks could not sort letters correctly for stations in India, where there were many places with the same name.