THE AMERICAN MAIL LINE TO EUROPE.
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The departure from this city, on Thursday week,
of our townsman, SELAH II. HoBBIE, Esq, First
Assistant Postmaster General, gives us occasion to
speak OF the great public enterprise with which his
visit to Southampton, Bremen, and other places in
Europe is connected. He goes out as the Agent of
the Postmaster General to make the needlul ar
Iangements for the Foreign Mail Service OF this
country to be performed by the New York and
Bremen line of steamships. This line goes into
operation on the lst of June, with the sailing of the
steamer Washington.


The success of our countrymen in river steam
boat navigation is well established and recognised.
But their enterprise now seeks broader and more
arduous theatre. They have become impatient to
display that skill upon the Ocean, where their well
established and powerful competitor has hitherto
welded the trident of superiority in steam naviga-
ton. The spirit of the people has manifested
itself through the action of Congress Three great
lines Of Ocean Steamers have been authorized by
law, and the noble ship Washington now leads off
in this high career of American enterprise. 1t is
the enterprise of our citizens, our individual citi-
zens, their skill and capital that create these lines
the Government giving countenance and aid by in
specting the construction of the ships through one
of its naval officers, and besowing its patronage by
means of the mail contract which the Postmaster
General has made.


| With the starting of this line the effort will be
made by our Post Office Department to relieve our
foreign mail intercourse Of certain perplexities and
embarrassments with which it is now trammeled.
Each country through which the letter has to pass
has its separate post office system, its separate
charge of postage, and that has to be paid before
the letter go to its destination This amounts,
unless agents resorted to, to total obstruction
A reciprocal arrangement that will reduce these diff
ferent charges into one postage rate, through for the
entire distance, with liberty to pay either where
mailed or delivered, and with system of accoun-
liability that will give to each Government its share
of the postage, is of the leading objects for which
Mr. HoBBIE is dispatched in the Washington. This
is SO just to all, manifesdy promotve of uni
versal convenience and advantage, that we trust our
First Assistant Postmaster General will succeed in
obtaining the hearty cooperation of the proper
thorities in England, Germany, and France in its
adoption.