In the House of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. G. W. Hunt, said: "The terms agreed upon, although very liberal, were not more liberal than they should be under the circumstances, and did not offer more than an arbitrator would have given. The companies had agreed to sell at twenty years' purchase of present net profits, although those profits were increasing at the rate of 10 per cent. a year. He was satisfied the more the House looked into the matter, the more they would be satisfied with the bargain made."[34] The Chancellor of the Exchequer continued with the statement that Mr. Scudamore estimated that the Postmaster General would obtain from the telegraphs a net revenue of $1,015,000 at the minimum, and $1,790,000 at the maximum. The mean of those estimates was $1,402,500, which sum would pay the interest and sinking fund payments--3.5 per cent. in all--on $40,000,000. The Government, therefore, could afford to pay $40,000,000 for the telegraphs. Indeed, on the basis of the maximum estimate of net revenue, it could pay $50,000,000. But Mr. Scudamore confidently fixed at $30,000,000 at the maximum, the price that the Government would have to pay. Mr. Scudamore's estimates of net revenue "would stand any amount of examination by the House, as they had stood very careful scrutiny by the Select Committee, and for the Government to carry out the scheme would not only prove safe but profitable." By this time the Government had learned that it would be necessary to purchase the reversionary rights of the railway companies in the business of the telegraph companies. The Government had agreed with the railway companies upon the terms under which it was to be left to arbitration how much should be paid for those reversionary rights. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that he was unwilling to divulge the Government's estimates of what sums would be awarded under the arbitration; for, if he did divulge them, they might be used against the Government before the arbitrators. "But Mr. Scudamore, whose ability with regard not only to this matter, but also to other matters, had been of great service to the Government, had given considerable attention to the matter, and Mr. Scudamore believed that $30,000,000 would be the outside figure" to be paid to the telegraph companies and the railway companies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer added that Mr. Scudamore's "calculations had been submitted to and approved by Mr. Foster, the principal finance officer of the Treasury." In passing, it may be stated that Mr. Foster had stated before the Select Committee of the House of Commons that he had given only "two or three days" to the consideration of the extremely difficult question of the value that the arbitrators would be likely to put upon the railway companies' reversionary rights.[35] [Sidenote: _Parliament warned against Government's Estimates_]