cHAP. IT] CONTROL OVER INTERNAL AFFAIRS 1041 
intolerable burden of the public debt, and the position in 
which the Colony was left by the contract of 1893, rendered 
this sacrifice inevitable, the fact that the Colony, after 
more than forty years of self-government, should have to 
resort to such a step is greatly to be regretted. 
10. I have to request that in communicating this dispatch 
to your Ministers you will inform them that it is my wish 
that it may be published in the Gazette. 
Mr. Chamberlain also sent a dispatch to the Governor on 
March 30, as follows :— 
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your 
dispatch of March 6, forwarding a Memorial from the New- 
foundland agents of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company 
protesting against the Railway Contract Act. 
I shall be glad if you will inform the Memorialists that 
[ have carefully considered their representations, but that 
[ am unable to comply with their prayer, and that the 
rights of the Company appear to be sufficiently safeguarded 
by the Supplementary Act which has been passed. 
The passing of this Act was followed by the suggestion 
by the Government that negotiations should be opened 
with the Imperial Government for a grant of a royal com- 
mission with the end of obtaining financial aid from that 
Government.! To this proposal the Imperial Government 
firmly demurred, pointing out that, since the idea of assistance 
had been mooted in 1890-1, circumstances had changed : the 
idea then was to provide means for the Government building 
a railway, now the railway had been built, and most of the 
assets of the Colony had been alienated without consulting 
the Imperial Government, which could not for a moment 
consider the grant of financial assistance to a self-governing 
colony, and would not therefore appoint a royal commission.? 
The opponents of the contract were by no means content 
with the situation, and insisted on petitioning the Secretary 
of State for the disallowance of the measure, and asked that 
Sir H. Murray, who had resigned his office, should be requested 
bo remain as Governor. They protested that the contract 
t Parl. Pap., C. 8867, p. 33. 
! A commission was sent in 1899, but to report on the French rights, 
a0t as to financial aid. 
12792