2147. My only object is to come to an accurate understanding of the facts; I understand your grievance to be, that the more expensive tender, from the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, was accepted by the Admiralty, when a cheaper contract might have been had from other parties, and that, in your judgment, £60,000 a year would have been ample for that service; is that so?—My complaint is, that the proposal of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company to undertake the Bombay mails was not accepted, but that they were allowed to adopt all my plans, and I was refused all participation in it. It could not be called a contract, it was not the time for a contract; contracts were never asked for; but there was clear evidence given that, if we were allowed to take it, it could be done for £60,000.
2148. You complain that an unfair advantage was allowed to be taken of you, by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company?—Certainly; I complain that they were allowed to take advantage of my plans and to adopt them, and that I was not allowed to compete for the contract.
2149. In your plan, you said it could be done for £60,000?—Yes.
2150. Your general plan has been adopted by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company?—Yes; my plan was distinctly opposed to theirs. Their plan was this: the vessels which were bound to go every month to Bengal, they purposed that those vessels should go to Bombay, and that once in every two months those vessels should go to Calcutta. That was, in point of fact, reducing the present communication, from a separate mail to Bombay and Calcutta, to one mail to Bombay.
2151. Your complaint was, that you were excluded from the opportunity of competing for the contract?—Yes; and that my plans were adopted.
2152. You have put it on record, that on the 6th of August the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated to you, that he had given no authority for the conclusion of the contract?—Yes, he said that he had nothing to do with it.
2153. On the 8th of August, two days afterwards, you have put it on record that the Secretary to the Admiralty told you that it was quite open to you to send in any tender you pleased?—Yes.
2154. And it was therefore open to the public in general, and to you in particular, to put in a tender thereupon?—I sent in a distinct tender for the China mail.
2155. But we were speaking of the service for which you say £60,000 was ample; viz. the Suez and Calcutta service. Confining yourself at present to that, you were told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 6th of August, that the contract was not concluded, and you were told by the Secretary of the Admiralty, on the 8th of August, that it was open to you, in particular, to send in any tender for the conveyance of the mail from Suez to Calcutta?—I was engaged in the other one at the time.
2156. Then is there any grievance at all as regards your being deprived of the mail from Suez to Calcutta?—Certainly, a very great grievance.