On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
Untitled Article
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 , probably , of a job , and employ them to carry the mails , though the the
Admiralty knew that "they were incapable of attaining 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 J 15 , 000 to contractors who had offered , for £ 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 Committee , 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 reponsibility as not producing papers nothing can be more effectual , in utterly annihilating the little remaining confidence in the integrity of public "men . The Committee , then , ought to have named the department , and named the individual responsible for the keeping and production of necessary documents .
at this charge * while other companies have expressly offered to perform the service for much less , is to endure till 3 8 67 . In the face of a continued cheapening of steam navigation and of com-. petition between companies , the Committee obviously regards this contract as most wasteful and extravagant , injurious alike to Canada and England , while it admits that the Cuxard line has carried out its provisions in the most thoroughly efficient and admirable manner . Contrary to what usually happens , thewaste 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 185 8 , 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 21-th of June was carried into effect . After such a proceeding , M-r ., 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 is 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 colony . Nor were any of the officers _ of the department charged with this branch ' of the Treasury business aware of this- correspondence , or of a minutr 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 tobe
when the Gunard contract expired . But we hold this to no excuse whatever ; and the financial secretary who entered office in March 1858 , is as culpable as the financial secretary who went out . In 1856 the Treasury was convinced that the Cunard contract was unjust to this country and to Canada . In 185 S a renewal of it was denied , but , in a few weeks , all objections were overruled , all experience was forgotten , and the contract , under , some mysterious influence , was renewed for nine years . Thus were the acknowledged and just claims , both ofHltercolcmy ^ idHhe-mot ^^^ money misapplied for that whole period b y 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 no allusion is made 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 . " Tlio 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 the important papers needed to explain them were prepared , and were not forthcoming .
The Committee contents itsplf 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 bo better to remember the good effects on the admirals of the execution of Byng , nnd make a striking example of some official who deserves it , Such jobbery nnd corruption ns jr . has laid the proofs of before the public cannot bo continued without endangering the empire , nnd some independent member of the House of Commons should cull its serious attention to the charges ' made in this report against public departments nnd public servants . This is the more necessary because the public expenditure is continually and rapidly increasing ; and it is in the increasing , or
This is not the only charge made by the Committee , In 18 o 7 , it says , the Tfeasury "" granted ah extension of the West India Contract for ; two years , without consulting either the Admiralty or the Post-office . * In 185 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 . A" -ain . in 1857 , a contract was entered into with the European
and Australian Company , involving a yearly subsidy of £ T 8 ^ 01 J 0 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 . TimeVas 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 extenxo . 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 securingsuch contracts they arc paid through the whole period the high prices that might remuneration for the first
be not more than a reasonable year ' s services . Now ' companies offer to carry tlio mails , keeping time and steaming with an ordained velooity , for the cost merely pf 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 inoney of one or two agents of the Postoffice . But the immenso suhsidy of £ 173 , 340 per annum originally given to the Cunard lino is continued ; in fact , it is now increased to . € 176 , 840 ; and tl | C contract , renewed in 1858
Untitled Article
538 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ June 9 , 1 S 60-
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 9, 1860, page 538, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2351/page/6/
-