§ Mr. Freshfieldwished to put a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer with respect to the proposed alteration in the port or ports from which the West India mails were hereafter to take their departure. He had heard, upon the authority of a Hampshire paper, that the Government had officially selected Southampton as the future point of departure. His first question, therefore, to the right hon. Gentleman would be whether that announcement was correct. But as a mere negation to that question would not satisfy his constituents, he begged further to ask whether the deputation of Cornish Members who had waited upon the right hon. Gentleman had correctly understood him to state that the Government would not decide on the question until they had taken the opinion of some gentlemen not interested in the question, and who were well qualified to judge of the comparative merits of the five ports which had been mentioned, namely, Falmouth, Devonport, Plymouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth. He wished also to know whether the deputation of Cornish gentlemen correctly understood the right hon. Gentleman to state that when this information had been received, he would draw it up in the form of a Treasury minute, and place it upon the table of that House.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequerreplied, that the statement in the newspaper, to which the hon. Gentleman had alluded, was not correct. The fact was not so. 1151 With respect to the hon. Gentleman's second question, the communication that he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had made to the deputation of Cornish gentlemen was this: that it was the intention of the Government to appoint certain gentlemen connected with the navy and the post-office, and utterly uninfluenced by the interests of the different ports, to inquire into the matter and to report to the Government, and as soon as instructions had been issued to these gentlemen, they would be laid on the table. One of the commissioners appointed was Sir James Gordon; another was the assistant-secretary to the post-office; and the third was a gentleman connected with the mercantile marine; their instructions would be framed by the Admiralty, and referred to the Treasury. Every port would have full opportunity of representing its own case, but the instructions were not framed; when they were, he would have no objection to lay them before the House. The ports to which the inquiry would apply were Falmouth, Devonport, Plymouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth.