took place, and the Company were allowed until the sailing of the last packet provided for under the expiring contract, to prove that they had capital sufficient for the undertaking,--but they failed in showing that they possessed sufficient paid-up capital, and they did not actually possess the vessels mentioned in their tender, so that on the 20th December, the Board of Admiralty closed that negotiation, and having obtained the consent of the Peninsular and Oriental Company to renew their former offer of £24,000, recommended it for the sanction of the Treasury, and it was adopted in the existing contract.” * * * * * The result of this transaction has, there is every reason to believe, satisfied the Government of the correctness of the opinions which were pressed upon its attention, on behalf of this Company, in the course of the proceedings above detailed, namely:-- 1. That fully recognising, as one of the first duties of a Government, the protection of the public interests, by economising the public resources, the mode adopted for doing so, by closing at short periods and re-opening to public tender these large Contracts for the Mail Service, is neither effective for benefiting the public, nor altogether equitable as regards the interests of those private parties who had embarked capital in the formation of the extensive steam navigation enterprises, by means of which these important postal communications were first established. 2. Because experience has amply proved, that capitalists cannot be induced to embark their money in any extensive steam navigation enterprise, intended to compete with one previously established. 3. Because the very act of terminating these Contracts at short periods, and then putting them up to public competition, increases the difficulty of obtaining _bonâ fide_ competitors, inasmuch as no capitalist of ordinary prudence will embark in an enterprise dependent for its success upon its employment in a public service of so uncertain or transient a duration. 4. Because, were it even possible to create a competing Company on so extensive a scale as would be required to perform efficiently the Contract Mail Services alluded to, the two Companies would either, one or both of them, be ruined--or, what is much more probable, for the protection of their mutual interests would coalesce, and thus establish a stronger monopoly than could ever be effected by a single Company. 5. Because it is but just that parties who have embarked so large an amount of capital in the establishment of such enterprises, and who have thereby, as has already been shown, been the means of effecting important public benefits, should have a preference of employment,[5] so long as they perform the public service efficiently, and are willing to do so on terms realising to them no more than a fair commercial profit.