[28] _Report from the Select Committee on the Telegraphic Bill_, 1869: q. 321 to 329. In 1868, Mr. Scudamore and the Government had said that the State ought not to be given the monopoly of the telegraph business. _Special Report from the Select Committee on the Telegraphs Bill_, 1868; q. 124 and following, 319 and 320, and 2,464 and following. CHAPTER IV THE PURCHASE OF THE TELEGRAPHS Upon inadequate consideration the Disraeli Ministry estimated at $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 the cost of nationalization. Political expediency responsible for Government's inadequate investigation. The Government raises its estimate to $30,000,000; adding that it could afford to pay $40,000,000 to $50,000,000. Mr. Goschen, M. P., and Mr. Leeman, M. P., warn the House of Commons against the Government's estimates, which had been prepared by Mr. Scudamore. The Gladstone Ministry, relying on Mr. Scudamore, estimates at $3,500,000 the "reversionary rights" of the railway companies, for which rights the State ultimately paid $10,000,000 to $11,000,000. On April 1, 1868, the Disraeli Government brought into Parliament a "Bill to enable the Postmaster General to acquire, work, and maintain Electric Telegraphs in the United Kingdom."[29] At this time the Government still was ignorant of the precise relations existing between the telegraph companies and the railways; and it did not foresee that the purchase of the assets of the telegraph companies would lead to the purchase of the reversionary rights of the railways in the telegraphs, the telegraphs having been, for the most part, erected on the lands of the railways, under leases of way-leaves that still had to run, on an average, 23.7 years. At this time, therefore, the Government contemplated only the purchase of the Electric and International Company, the British and Irish Company, the United Kingdom Company, and the London and Provincial, the successor of the London District Telegraph Company. [Sidenote: _Purchase Price estimated at $15,000,000 to $20,000,000_] In the course of the debate upon the order for the Second Reading of the Bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. G. W. Hunt, said that "if the House would excuse him, he would rather not enter fully into details with respect to the purchase at present. But he would say that, speaking roughly, it would take something near $20,000,000, or, at all events, between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000 for the purchase and the necessary extensions of the lines." He added that if the purchase should be made, the telegraphs would yield a net revenue of $1,050,000 a year; and that sum would suffice to pay the interest on the debt to be contracted, and to clear off that debt in twenty-nine years.[30]