The postmaster general, in reply, pointed out that the rate of payment made to Cunard was considerably higher than that for any other packet service, also that he had before him another offer for the conveyance of the transatlantic mails for an amount much less than was paid to Cunard. The new offer was from Inman, agent for the Liverpool, New York and Philadelphia line, whose vessels made their voyages at a speed not much inferior to Cunard's, and who agreed to convey the mails for the amount of the sea postage. The offer had been received on the 1st of March, nineteen days before the application of Cunard; and as the postmaster general had had occasion to correspond with the postmaster general of the United States respecting Inman's offer, he had not thought it necessary to communicate this proposal to the treasury, nor did the treasury consider that their duty required them to make any further investigation before awarding the contract for L173,340 a year. These facts are taken from the report of a select committee appointed by the house of commons in 1860, to inquire into the manner in which contracts have been made for the conveyance of mails by sea. The committee found that, in the making of these contracts, there was an extraordinary division of duty and consequent responsibility, between several departments of government. The parties by whom these contracts were actually entered into, were the lords of the admiralty, but the authority for making them rested with the treasury, who prescribed their terms and conditions. The treasury before coming to the decisions which they communicated to the admiralty, consulted with the postmaster general, the colonial secretary, and with the admiralty themselves, in reference to the postal, colonial and nautical questions involved. Theoretically, the arrangements were scarcely open to criticism. It was proper that the information necessary for a decision, respecting, in the first place, whether a service was required at all, and, in the next place, what the terms and conditions should be, on which the service should be performed, should be concentrated somewhere, and there seemed no place more fitting as a focal point than the lords of the treasury, who were responsible for obtaining and spending the money required for the maintenance of all the services called for by the government. But the fault lay not in the organization. It was to be found in the lack of co-ordination among the contributory departments. Several instances are given of the results of the failure of the departments to co-operate with one another. One which has a certain piquancy is the provision for the mail service to Australia.