AN ABSTRACT, &c., &c.

In their last Report, presented to the Proprietors at the general meeting held on the 31st of May last, the Directors stated that a Committee of the House of Commons had been appointed, “to inquire into the Contract Packet Service;” and expressed “their satisfaction that such an inquiry had been instituted, feeling, as they did, that as far as the interests of this Company were concerned, it would have a beneficial tendency, by eliciting facts connected with the origin and progress of the Company, and its employment in the Contract Mail Service, which could not fail to show the important national benefits which it has been the means of realising, and its consequent claim to public support.”

It is no doubt known to some Proprietors of the Company, that for several years past statements have been made, and circulated with untiring pertinacity, to the effect, that the Contracts made by the Government with this Company for the Mail Packet Service had been obtained through undue favouritism, or corrupt jobbing1—that fair competition had been denied to other parties,—and that the Company had, in consequence, obtained a much larger remuneration for the Service than ought to have been given, and were deriving enormous profits from it.

Although the Directors were aware that these misstatements had obtained some attention, even in influential quarters, they probably did not consider it was consistent with the eminent position which the Company occupies to take any legal proceedings against, or to enter into any public controversy with, the parties who had been chiefly instrumental in propagating them.

The forbearance of the Directors has led to a highly satisfactory result. The continued propagation of these misstatements at last attracted the attention of a member of the House of Commons so far as to induce that honourable gentleman to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the Contract Packet Service.

Although the Committee was moved for and appointed ostensibly to inquire into the Service generally, its principal object was, as is sufficiently obvious from its proceedings, to investigate the Contracts and transactions of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. And the earlier part of the proceedings of the Committee also show that the honourable mover and Chairman of it, actuated, no doubt, by a sense of public duty, entertained, at first, no very friendly views on the subject in reference to this Company.

The facts elicited in the course of the inquiry, and the glaring self-contradictions exhibited by the principal witness, when brought to the test of an examination before the Committee, as well as the hostile tone adopted by him towards this Company, appear, however, to have satisfied the honourable gentleman that, while induced to believe that he was prosecuting a public object, and undertaking a public duty, he had been made use of, for the mere gratification of private feeling.

And the following two first paragraphs of the Committee’s Report, which was drafted and proposed by the honourable member himself, are a sufficient refutation of the misstatements which led to the inquiry.

1. “That so far as the Committee are able to judge, from the evidence they have taken, it appears that the Mails are conveyed at a less cost by hired packets than by Her Majesty’s vessels.

2. “That some of the existing Contracts have been put up to public tender, and some arranged by private negotiation; and that a very large sum beyond what is received from postage is paid on some of the lines; but, considering that at the time these Contracts were arranged the success of these large undertakings was uncertain, your Committee see no reason to think better terms could have been obtained for the public.”

As the detached and inconsecutive form in which the evidence of the different officers of the Government departments was given to the Committee does not afford a very clear view of the history of the connexion of this Company with the Contract Packet Service—and, in particular, does not show the important public advantages which have been derived from the undertaking of these services by the Company—it is considered expedient, previously to proceeding with the abstract of the Committee’s proceedings, to give a brief consecutive statement of the circumstances under which the various branches of the Contract Packet Service were undertaken by the Company. And first,