§ MR. MACFARLANEasked the Postmaster General, If he can explain why the Indian Mail of the 11th of January, which was due in London on Tuesday the 29th, was not delivered until Friday the 1st of February; if it is a fact that the steamship "Lombardy," with the Mail on board, was detained at anchor at Suez for twenty-four hours, nine hours at Port Said, taking in cargo, and that the Mails were further delayed for some hours at Brindisi after they reached that port; and, if he will call upon the Company holding the contract for the carrying of the Mails to explain the cause of these delays?
§ MR. FAWCETTI must explain to the hon. Member that although, according to the time table he refers to, the mail was due in London on the 29th of January, that date was based on the anticipated resumption of the transit of the mails through Egypt by railway and by steamer from Alexandria to Brindisi; whereas, in fact, the mails had to be brought through the Suez Canal, and from Port Said to Brindisi. 673 So that, in reality, they could not be expected in London before the 31st, and they would have been delivered on that date but for untoward delays arising from the Italian quarantine regulations and the heavy weather experienced at Brindisi, which prevented the mails being landed there for 24 hours after the packet arrived. It is satisfactory to me to be able to state that the regular mail service is about to be resumed early in March.
§ MR. MACFARLANEI will put a further Question to the right hon. Gentleman on the subject of the Lombardy. I was a passenger on board of her.