The American Mail Service. 75 



therefore they should be subsidised by the Enghsh Government 

 as far as possible. The captains of these vessels were naval 

 reserve men, and if the English Government subsidised ships 

 that sailed under the American flag they would be subsidising 

 ships that might be the ships of the enemy in case of war. He 

 though that would be a serious matter, and as Britishers they 

 should do all they could to have their mails carried under the 

 Enghsh flag. Another matter of importance was the large 

 number of passengers that would be landed at Southampton if 

 it were selected as the mail route. He thought it would be a 

 great injustice to Ireland if xA.merican passengers, who spent a 

 large sum of money yearly as tourists in going through Ireland, 

 were carried past Queenstown and landed in England. That 

 would be a grievance of which they would have more cause to 

 complain than many of the imaginary grievances that people 

 talked so much about. 



Mr. F. D. Ward, J.P., in seconding the motion, which was 

 passed, said the lecture to which they had listened could only 

 do good, and he hoped the result of it would be that the 

 Queenstown route would be ensured to them for the conveyance 

 of the American mails. 



The lecturer, in acknowledgement, said he was not interested 

 in any of the companies that were concerned in the question of 

 the mail service. 



The proceedings then terminated. 



