5. Because it is but just that parties who have embarked so large an amount of capital in the establishment of such enterprises, and who have thereby, as has already been shown, been the means of effecting important public benefits, should have a preference of employment,[5] so long as they perform the public service efficiently, and are willing to do so on terms realising to them no more than a fair commercial profit.
6. That there is no practical difficulty in protecting the public interest, without opening these Contracts to public tender, by either of the following means:—
First, By stipulating for a diminishing scale of payments, on the plan adopted by this Company in their Contract for the Southampton and Alexandria Mail Service. The public, by this plan, derive a benefit from any increase of income which, by the progressive development of their enterprise, the Contractors may obtain from the increase of commercial traffic.
Secondly, By stipulating that, at intervening periods of the Contract, the question of reduction should be submitted to two competent arbitrators, one to be appointed by the Government, who should investigate the Contractor’s transactions, and make an award as to whether any and what reduction ought to be made in the payment for the Mail Services.
The Committee of the House of Commons seem to have recognised the eligibility of the principle of the last mode of proceeding, in the third and concluding resolution of their Report, namely—“They suggest that if it be decided to renew the existing Contracts, the most strict and searching inquiry should be instituted, by some responsible department of the Government, into the cost of the execution, into the manner in which the Service has been performed, and into the profits resulting from the several transactions to the Companies by which they have been respectively carried on.”
This suggestion, it has been shown, was anticipated by the Directors of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, in offering their books and accounts to the inspection of Government.