The Ocean Postal Service

i rom the lioudon News. The Postinaster-General has issued a circular to the steamship companies engaged in the transatlantic trade, which is of importanoe aud interest to the commercial world. He has intiniated that the contract for carrying the mails between the United States and Great Britain, which expires in Deoember next will not be renewed, and that the service after the lst of January will be oonduoted on the same principies as those followed by the Postmaster-General of the United States, Each steamship company will be inyited on the fir8t of each month to send a list of their proposed sailings, naming the port of departure and arrival, with a copy of the log for each of their three previous voyages made by steamerg they propose to run. Prom this list the Postinaster- General will make his selection, and the rates of remuneration will be the same as are now paid by the United States Government. These payments will average, we anderstand, soinething like L100 a voyage. The subsidies at present paid uuder the existing contracta amount to L110,000 a yetr. A considerable saving will therefore be effected, but there is a diffioulty in oarrying out the proposed scheme which has yet to be adj usted. Steamers oarrying the outward mail have to submit to a detention at Queeustown which will average seven or eight hours, and it is just a question whether the flrstclass lines which now make the voyage to America with so much speed and regularity will consider it worth while for the sake of an odd hundred pounds now and again to submit t% this detention. The difficulty does not exist on theinward voyage, so that the analogy of the arrangeineut with the United States (iovernment, and which is referred to by the Postrnaster-General in his circular, is not altogether perfect. A detention at Queenstown must involve a steamship company in a certain amount of loss,