FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  
ork and Nassau in the Bahamas.[AO] The next year (1858) after suffering crushing disasters in the loss of two of their steamers, and the withdrawal of their subsidy, the Collins Company failed, and their line was abandoned.[AP] So this competition ended. Meanwhile complaints of the Admiralty's partiality in the allotment of the contracts had been renewed more vigorously, with wider criticism of grants for mail carriage largely in excess of the postage received; and in 1859-60 another Parliamentary investigation was made. The ultimate result of this inquiry was a radical change in the system. The management of the ocean mail-service was taken from the Admiralty and placed wholly in the hands of the Post-Office Department; and at the expiration of the Cunard Company's extended contract, the service was thrown open to public competition, as the Parliamentary committee of 1846 had advised. Bids were now received from the Cunard, the Inman, the North German Lloyd, and other lines. The Inman Company had previously offered to perform the service, and had done so for sea-postage only.[AQ] Contracts were finally concluded with the three named. The contract with the Inman Line was for a fortnightly Halifax service, for seven hundred and fifty pounds the round trip, nineteen thousand five hundred pounds a year, and a weekly New York service for sea-postage. That with the Cunard Line was for a weekly service to New York at a fixed subsidy of eighty thousand pounds. That with the North German Lloyd was for a weekly service, at the sea-postage. These contracts were to run for a year only. The Cunard's subsidy, although considerably less than half the amount that the company had received the previous ten years, showed a loss to the Government, at sea-postage rates, of forty-four thousand one hundred and ninety-six pounds, since the amount actually earned at sea-postage rates was twenty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six pounds.[AR] When advertisements for tenders were next issued, it was found that the Cunard and Inman companies had formed a "community of interests," with an agreement not to underbid each other. They asked a ten years' contract on the basis of fifty thousand pounds fixed subsidy for a weekly service. Instead, they were awarded seven years' contracts: the Cunard for a semi-weekly service, seventy thousand pounds subsidy; the Inman, for a weekly service, thirty-five thousand pounds subsidy.[AR] At the same t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

service

 

pounds

 

thousand

 
subsidy
 
postage
 

Cunard

 

weekly

 
hundred
 

contracts

 

contract


received

 

Company

 

competition

 
German
 

Parliamentary

 

eighty

 

Admiralty

 
amount
 

Instead

 
awarded

nineteen

 
Halifax
 

fortnightly

 

seventy

 
considerably
 

thirty

 

company

 

tenders

 

issued

 

advertisements


underbid

 

community

 

interests

 

formed

 
companies
 

twenty

 
earned
 
showed
 
Government
 

previous


agreement

 

ninety

 

advised

 
renewed
 

vigorously

 

allotment

 

Meanwhile

 
complaints
 

partiality

 
criticism