§ CAPTAIN NOLAN, in rising to call attention to what he considered to be the faulty arrangements in connection with the postal service in certain districts in Ireland, said, that in that country many of the routes of postal communication run from East to West by main roads and railways. In order to keep up the proper work of communication there were cross-country posts, and it was respecting the inefficiency of these that he wished to complain. He knew of cases in which a letter to go four or five miles had to make a circuit of 50 or 60 miles, and there was a tract of agricultural country 57 miles in extent which was totally unprovided with postal facilities. He hoped these representations would elicit a reply from the noble Lord the Postmaster General.
§ CAPTAIN O'BEIRNE, from his own personal experience, supported what had been said as to the inconvenience resulting from the defective postal arrangements. In one instance a letter from 1556 Dublin had occupied six weeks in travelling a distance of 123 miles.
§ MR. ISAACsaid, he could assure hon. Members from Ireland that complaints as to the deficiency of postal and telegraphic communication were not confined to that country alone. The postal arrangements in Nottinghamshire were extremely unsatisfactory, and he thought it was necessary that there should be greater expedition in the postal and telegraph communication throughout the country.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERurged upon the Government the absolute necessity of improving the postal and telegraphic communication in the West of Ireland. He would call the attention of the noble Lord the Postmaster General to a suggestion that had been made that those places where telegraphic communication was deficient should, in the first instance, provide the poles and wires, and must observe that such a condition would be a great hardship upon the inhabitants.
§ MR. O'SULLIVANgave instances of the unsatisfactory postal and telegraphic arrangements in different parts of the county Limerick, and expressed a hope that a general inquiry would be instituted with regard to postal communication in Ireland.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he must remind the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Captain Nolan) that on two or three occasions he had gone fully into the question in the House, and that he had further expressed his willingness to consider the matter with him outside the House. The Notice of the hon. and gallant Member was to draw attention to the faulty postal arrangements "in certain parts of Ireland," and how could he expect an offhand answer to so indefinite a Notice? When a detailed account was laid before him, inquiries would be made, and a remedy applied, to remove the want of a proper postal communication. [Captain NOLAN said, that the complaint had reference to the north of Galway.] The proposal made by the hon. and gallant Member last year was in effect that one mail car should be taken off and another put on a different line, but that proposal had been carefully considered, and it was found that the proposed change would not benefit the district, while it would involve increased 1557 costs over and above the dead loss to the Department arising from the present arrangement. The postal system in Scotland was, as regarded cross posts, exactly similar to that in Ireland, and yet no Scotch Member complained of it. However, if the names of the places referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway and the hon. Member for the county of Limerick were sent to him, he should be glad to go into all the complaints, and, if possible, to provide a remedy, but he must have ample time for consideration.
§ MR. PARNELLthought if a little more attention were given by the Postmaster General to the postal arrangements in the West and South of Ireland, the results would be satisfactory to the Revenue. He also had to complain of the present system of making appointments to local post offices in Ireland, the patronage being practically given to the Members of Parliament representing the county in which the office was situate, provided he belonged to the Party which was in power.
§ MR. R. POWERstated it was his intention to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the whole matter, especially after what they had heard from the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Captain O'Beirne) that a letter took six weeks to travel a distance of 123 miles.
§ MR. FRENCHknew that a letter posted in one town in the county Roscommon could not be delivered in another town five miles distant before the second day. He hoped the Government would grant the facilities of postal communication asked for.