Mr. Leeman, who had sat on the Select Committee, and had, with Mr. Goschen, done all of the cross-examining directed to bring out the points that told against the Government's proposal, followed Mr. Goschen in the debate. He began by stating that he spoke with "twenty years' experience as a railway man;" and he directed his argument especially against the terms of the agreements made by the Government to purchase the reversionary rights of the railways in the telegraph companies' businesses. "Mr. Scudamore, who was what he had already been described to be--a most able man--had not known, up to the time of the second reading of the Bill [June 8, 1868], what were the existing arrangements between the telegraph companies and the railway companies; and, subsequently, while still without the requisite knowledge on that point,[38] he went and agreed on the part of the Government to buy the interest of the telegraph companies at 20 years' purchase of their profits. In addition it was to be remembered that the railway companies had reversionary interests which would come into operation after comparatively short time for which their arrangements with the telegraph companies were to continue. In July, 1866, Mr. Scudamore estimated the necessary outlay on the part of the Government at $12,000,000. In February, 1868, another officer of the Government raised the estimate to $15,000,000; but it was not until the Bill came before the committee [July, 1868], that Mr. Scudamore said that $30,000,000 would be required.... He [Mr. Leeman] undertook to say that Mr. Scudamore was as wide of the mark in his estimate of $30,000,000, as he had been in his estimate of $12,000,000. At the expiration of their agreements with the telegraph companies, several [all] of the railway companies would have it in their power to compete with the Post Office in the transmission of telegraphic messages. No doubt this fact would be brought under the notice of the arbitrators when the value of their reversion was being considered, and at what price would the arbitrators value this reversionary power of competition? Had Mr. Scudamore made any estimate on the subject? Owing to the position in which Mr. Scudamore had placed the Government, the railway companies had demanded and had been promised terms in respect of their reversions, which he, as a railway man, now said it was the duty of any Government to have resisted." ...[39] [Sidenote: _Railway Companies' Reversionary Rights_]