2167. Do you mean to represent that the principal shipowners having information that the Secretary of the Admiralty had stated that the contract was open, were nevertheless of opinion, that if they offered to do the service for £60,000, the Board of Admiralty would still give the contract to a party who required a much larger sum?—I hardly know how to answer that question. I cannot say that I saw Mr. Green after the petition, but his impression was that it was of no use to compete with that powerful Company.
2168. Do you mean to represent to the Committee your opinion that while the Board of Admiralty told you that you might compete if you pleased, they had in point of fact made up their minds to give the contract to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company at a much higher price?—That was our firm belief, that they had made up their minds to give it to them. This I know as a fact, that when the matter was handed over from the East India Company, and the East India Company had nothing to do with it, the Peninsular and Oriental Company asked £170,000, and they had it all their own way; but the East India Company said that they would not pay more than a certain amount annually; they were to pay a certain proportion, but they said, “We will do nothing of the kind; you may do as you like: we will have nothing to do with it beyond paying a certain amount.”
2169. Did it occur to you that if so scandalous a spirit of jobbing as you describe had actuated the Board of Admiralty, you might have put them completely in the wrong by offering a contract from parties competent to perform the service for £60,000, which you laid down as the proper sum?—I can answer the question in this way: it is all very well to say, “Why did you not send in a contract?” but it is a contract that required a large capital and great arrangements. It is impossible to make all those great arrangements in two days; the Peninsular Company, by obtaining under false pretences £20,000 for the Calcutta mail, had put all other parties out; and if you say, “Will you make a contract in a couple of days now for £60,000?” it is impossible; it requires a large fleet and great capital. Mr. Green has a large fleet, but they are employed in other parts; and his expression was, “It is of no use competing with the Peninsular Company, for they are too powerful for us; their influence is so great.”
2170. You mean to represent that all the shipowners in London acquiesced in the opinion that public money to a large amount was going to be given from favouritism to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company; but that it was of no use, on account of the secret influence which the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company had got at the Admiralty, to contend with them?—That was my own individual belief, and the petitioners, I think, agreed in that.
2171. Did you lend a large share in the drawing up of this petition?—I did.
2172. Is it your composition?—I do not know that it is.
2173. In the petition you object not to one contract in particular, but to the system of contracts altogether?—We object not to the whole system of contracts, but to the system under which it has been carried on; in the first place, there are put into the contracts conditions which are never acted upon; that I consider extremely wrong; it keeps all honest men away.
2174. The stringent conditions put into the contracts keep all honest men away?—That is going too far; I mean to say that you are asked to agree to very strict conditions, which a man cannot honestly say, “I agree to.” If the condition says that if I am half an hour behind time I shall forfeit £500, a man naturally asks himself, “Shall I enter into the contract? for if those clauses are inserted, I am a ruined man, and therefore I cannot guarantee that.”
2175. If you and your friends had tendered this service for £60,000, you would have required more reasonable conditions?—I should have no objection to being bound to all reasonable conditions. The late contract for the mail to the Brazils is as it ought to be; there is no kind of trap of so many hours; the condition is simply this, the ships are to be efficient vessels.
2176. No honest man, in your opinion, would have undertaken such a contract as that which the Peninsular and Oriental Company undertook, for £60,000?—What I mean is this, that no honest man would undertake a thing which he was not competent to perform; for instance, he would not undertake that the passage shall be a certain number of hours; and putting in those strict conditions would prevent an honest man from taking part in it.