On this page
-
Text (1)
-
538 The Leader and Saturday Analyst. [Ju...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Mail Contracts—Who Are The Del1xquents? ...
however , followed up by charges which involve great peccability . The Admiralty— -the most infallible of Boards , if amongst Boards there can be degrees of infallibility—is actually described by the Committee as trying to bribe the contractors for mail service at Dover , by the offer of large pecuniary advantages to take off its hands some worthless packets- —the memorials , probablyof a joband employ them to carry the mails , though the
, , Admiralty knew that "they were incapable of attaining the speed it stipulated for . " We copy the very words of the accusation , when we add that this infallible' Board " bound the Government to pay a yearly subsidy of £ 15 , 000 to contractors who had offered , ibr £ 12 , 000 a-year , to undertake the service . " The Board seemed desirous , at any cost , to force on the contractors its worthless vessels ; and accordingly it concealed from the Treasury , to which it was bound to report the whole transaction , the offer
of the smaller sum . Moreover it , or somebody connected with the Treasury , seems to have hidden or destroyed the documents ; for the Committee , in endeavouring to investigate the grounds on which the Dover contract was renewed in 1858 , found that important papers were missing , and that the minute stating the grounds of the renewal was not forthcoming . Not only is there , according to the Com-. mittee , a want of concert and responsibility amongst the Boards , there is a breach of discipline and an open violation of duty by some individuals far worse than that for which Sir C . Trevelyan has been so hastily dismissed . If the culpable person pointed at has not been rewarded , he has certainly not been punished . The Committee itself is , in our judgment , somewhat to blame for not informing the public explicitly which department is in fault—the Admiralty or the Treasury , for the loss or suppression of " important papers , " Than such a scandalous mode of getting rid of repo risibility as not producing papers nothing can be more effectual , in : utterly annihilating the little remaining confidence in the integrity of public men . The Qpinmittee , then , ought to have named the department , and named the individual responsible for the keeping and production of necessary docu' merits . '¦ ; ¦ . •_ . ' ¦ ¦ .- . ¦ . . ¦ ¦ ¦ .. ¦ ¦ ' ; ¦ ... . - - ¦ . _ ' - . This is not the only charge made by the Committee . In 1857 , it says , the Treasury "ranted an extension of the West India Contract for two years , Avitliout consulting either the Admiralty or the Post-office . In 1 So 8 , it refused to sanction a contract entered into by the Government of Newfoundland , in consideration of a report of the Admiralty , and next year gave its sanction to a similar contract with another company , without requiring any report from the Admiralty . This other company , from some circumstance not explained by the Committee , found peculiar and especial favour with the Treasury . / Vcpij ryin 1857 , a contract was entered into with the European and " Australian Company , involving a yearly subsidy of £ TK 5 ^( T 07 ~ of which one-half was to be paid by the Australian colonies . The tender accepted was that of a new company without experience . One of its vessels , though condemned by the Admiralty surveyor , was allowed to go , and broke down on her voyage . Time was not kept . The whole contract was a complete failure . The colonies complained ; the company is said to have lost £ 400 , 000 ; postal communication was interrupted : still nobody is named as culpable . It is , however , expressly stated that ' . this remarkable contract " was arranged by the then Financial Secretary ; whose acts in these matters do not appear to have received confirmation by any other authority . " For this blunder or job , therefore , the Financial Secretary of 1857 is exclusively responsible ; and the First Loud of the Treasury and the . Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being , who allowed him to negotiate contracts without obtaining their sanction , cannot be free from blame . " The history of the contracts for carrying the mails to America is equally interesting and instructive , but too long for us to quote in extenso . From the beginning , however , in 1840 , till the present time , there has been a great desire in companies and individuals to secure these contracts for a prospective number of years . The contractors are aware that the real cost of transport , as the rule , gradually diminishes ; and by securing such contracts they arc paid through the whole period the high prices that might ha .... not .. morftJiho . n . A ... . ? Mon ? M ? ^ F ! " ' ?^ * ° tue nvst venr ' s services , Now companies offer to carry "tli ' o mails , keepingtime and steaming with nn ordnined velocity , for the coat merely of the ocean postage . There seems reason to believe even that , in conjunction with the immense passenger traffic between America and Europe the mails could be carried , as railways carry them , at the ordinary charge of freight , including the passage money of one or two agents of the Postoffice . But tho immense subsidy of £ 173 , 340 per annum originally given to tho Cunard lino is continued ; in fact , it is now increased to £ 176 , 340 ; and the contract , renewed in 1858
at this charge , while other companies have expressly offered to perform the service for much less , is to endure till 1867 . In the face of a continued cheapening of steam navigation and of competition between companies , the Committee obviously regards this contract as most wasteful and extravagant , injurious alike to Canada and England , while it admits that the Cunard line has carried out its provisions in the most thoroughly efficient and admirable manner . Contraiy to what usually happens , the waste of the Treasury has not generated carelessness and neglect . -
.. . , When such vast sums of money are given to some—the whole of the subsidies to steam-packet companies now amount to nearly £ 1 , 000 , 000 a-year—those are injured who are excluded from a share . Because one subsidy or bounty is given another is claimed , and novel lines are actually started both in America and England for the sake of a subsidy . * Mr . Lever's claim for £ 78 , 000 a-year for running a line of steamers from Galway , conceded in a hurry by Lord Derby in a most irregular manner , without adequate
information , and nominally for the sake of some presumed social advantage to Ireland , which the public has severely and justly condemned as a job , is only one of many similar and , we believe , equally reprehensible transactions . The renewed contract asked for by Cunard was objected to on the 2 nd of March , 1858 , by the Treasury as premature ; but on the 20 th of May 1858 , the Treasury , without obtaining further information , passed a minute in favour of the concession . It was objected to by the Post-office , but on the 24 th of June was carried into effect . After such a
proceeding , Mr . Lever might justly complain , had the public money not also been given to support his patriotic exertions for Galway and Ireland . In excuse of the Financial Secretary of the Treasury , who entered office on the change of Ministry in March , 1858 , it i 3 mentioned by the Committee that he was not aware of the correspondence with the Government of Canada , which had protested against ; , the renewal of the Cunard contract , because it injured that colohv . Nor were any of the officers of the department
charged with this branch of the Treasury business aware of this correspondence , or of a minute of the Treasury of Dec . 3 rd , 1856 , referring to it , and expressing a hope that a more equitable arrangement for the finances of this country would be come to when the Cunard contract expired . But we hold this to be no excuse whatever ; and the financial secretary who entered office in March 1858 , is as culpable as the financial secretary wild went out . In 1856 the Treasury was convinced that the Cunard contract was unjust to this country and to Canada . In 1 S 5 S a renewal of it was denied , but , in a few weeks , all
objections were overruled , all experience was forgotten , arid the contract , under some mysterious influence , was renewed for nine years . Thus were the acknowledged and just claims , both . * c ^ lTe ~ calany-tmd ~ the-mot ^^ — money misapplied for that whole period by an underhand proceeding of financial secretaries . The Committee has not received , nor is the public in possession of , any , " satisfactory explanation of the circumstance , " that a resolution recently adopted by a public Board , on good grounds , " should have been so entirely lost sight of . " It is only one of many instances of the Treasury continually overruling , for some unworthy purpose , its own good verbal resolutions . " It ought ( says the Committee ) to add , that nb allusion is mode to that
correspondence ( with the Canada Government ) , or to the question of which it treats in the minute of the 2 nd of March ( 1858 ) , left by the Secretary who had just vacated office . " Though not named by the Committee , the then Secretary is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer for India , and is the same gentleman who negotiated the memorable contract for Australia " without obtaining the confirmation of any other authority . " The independent members of the Committee will not do their duty if they do not , undeterred by the frowns of its official and ex-official members—prone to shield their own class—ask the opinion of the House of Commons as to the conduct of those officials by whose agency these transactions were completed , and tho important papers needed to . explain them were prepared , and were not forthcoming .
The Committee contents itself with suggesting a heap of new and trivial regulations for the formation of contracts in future , — mere cobwebs , which will restrain no dishonest official . It would be better to remember the good effects on the admirals of the execution of BynO , and make a striking example of some official who deserves it . Such jobbery and corruption as it has laid tho proofs of before the public cannot bo continued without endangering the empire , and some independent member of the House of Commons should call its serious attention to tho charges made in this report against public departments and public scrvonts . This is the more necessary because the public expenditure is continually arid rapidly increasing ; and it is in the increasing , or
538 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. [Ju...
538 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ June 9 , 1 S 6 Q *
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 9, 1860, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09061860/page/6/
-