HC Deb 27 July 1874 vol 221 cc784-8
SIR TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIR

in-rising pursuant to Notice, To move for a Copy of the Correspondence between the directors of the Highland and Sutherland and Caithness Railway Company and the Postmaster General on the subject of the arrangements for the transmission of the mails from Helmsdale to Wick and Thurso, and to call attention to the very serious inconvenience and loss which will result to the counties of Sutherland, Caithness, and Orkney, if the Post Office authorities persist in the determination which they have expressed, not to continue the present mail service beyond Helmsdale, but to send the mail bags by ordinary trains as parcels, said, the directors of the Highland and Sutherland and Caithness Railway Company had applied to the Post Office authorities to know what arrangements they desired to make for the transmission of mails on their line, and the answer they received was, they intended to send the mail bags as parcels by the ordinary trains; and on a subsequent occasion they informed them that not only did they not intend to improve the mail service, but that they intended to discontinue the sending of the mails from Helmsdale to Wick and Thurso. In consequence of that, he asked a Question of the Postmaster General, and received what he must characterize as an evasive and unsatisfactory reply. The answer was, that there was no information before the Post Office that the line was open, and that they wore not able to state when it would be open. Now, in answer to that, he had to state that he had received a telegram to say that the line had been opened; that it had been passed by the Government Inspector; and that to-morrow morning the trains would run. The inhabitants of the district had a right to expect that when the line was opened, there would be an improvement in the mail service, and the directors of the Highland, Sutherland, and Caithness Company offered to undertake to run the trains at a speed that would ensure the delivery of the mail the following night after it was despatched from London, and thus it would have been accelerated by 24 hours. But under the arrangements which had been made, instead of an acceleration, there would be a retardation. It was notorious that no train could be run on Sunday without loss, unless it received a Post Office subsidy; and as this railway simply was to receive no subsidy, the result would be that the district would be deprived altogether of the Sunday mail. The Post Office authorities would be compelled to run a coach by the side of the railway on Sundays, which would involve a delay of several hours, Now he was sure that it was not the opinion of the House or of the country, that the Post Office service should be deteriorated. If the Post Office were to lay down the principle that no Post Office accommodation could be granted which could not be paid for out of the postal receipts of the district, then hundreds of districts must be deprived of it. But that had not been the guiding principle of the Post Office administration of this country. The Government undertook the safe delivery of registered letters and packets, and was it right that such valuable things as the contents of registered letters should be sent in ordinary parcels by train? He thought that was not the way in which the service of the Post Office of this country should be conducted. He trusted that the Government would make no difficulty in producing the Correspondence that he moved for; but he must say he thought some attention should be called to the course which the Post Office authorities had adopted, not only in this, but in other districts. He found by the Report of the Royal Commission on Railways, that a town in Hampshire was deprived of a day post for nine years, because the railway company demanded the extortionate price of 8d. a-day for conveying the bag, the Post Office authorities thinking that 4d. a-day was sufficient. He found that on other occasions, the Post Office authorities had expressed opinions with reference to the rates at which the mails should be carried, which appeared to him to be most unjust to the railway companies. For instance, they said that the mail bags should be conveyed for a halfpenny per hundredweight. If these were the pretensions of the Post Office authorities, it was not to be wondered at there should be great difficulty in making arrangements between them and the directors of the different railway companies. The directors of this company merely wished that the terms on which they should carry the mails should be put to arbitration, and he did not know why the Post Office authorities should refuse so reasonable a pro-position. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving for the Correspondence set forth in the Notice.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "there be laid before this House, a Copy of the Correspondence between the Directors of the Highland and Sutherland and Caithness Railway Company and the Postmaster General on the subject of the arrangements for the transmission of the mails from Helmsdale to Wick and Thurso,"—(Sir Tollemache Sinclair,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, he had had the pleasure of reading in the columns of a morning paper the speech just delivered in the form of a letter; but there was one sentence in the letter which was omitted from the speech—he meant that in which the hon. Baronet said he preferred writing a letter to a newspaper to delivering a speech in the House of Commons.

SIR TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIR

denied that he said anything of the kind. What he said was, that the pressure of Public Business would probably prevent him from saying what he wished to say in Parliament.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

continued: At all events the hon. Baronet wished to have two barrels to his gun, and one of them had just been fired off. He had no objection to produce the Correspondence which had been moved for. The contract which the hon. Baronet referred to expired naturally, and of itself, and a notification to that effect was given in the course of last autumn. With regard to the statement in the letter to which he had just alluded, that the conduct of the Postal Department must have originated in the animosity which the present Government felt against the three northern counties of Scotland in consequence of the character of their representation in the House of Commons—

SIR TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIR

Sir, I rise to Order. The Postmaster General has no right to allude to what is not before the House.

MR. SPEAKER

ruled that the remarks of the Postmaster General were relevant.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, such a motive as that which was attributed to them could not possibly have actuated the Government, the notice having been given by that distinguished Representative of North Britain, the late Postmaster General. If, however, any real difficulty of a grievance were felt under the Act of last Session, the Post Office would not object to a reference to arbitration. The main point of the hon. Baronet's speech was, that there should be arbitration, and the Post Office would not object to that course. As regarded the conveyance of mails by ordinary passenger trains, he might observe that that had been done in the ease of the mail services from Manchester, Birmingham, and other largo towns of England and Ireland, and he could not for the life of him understand why it should not be satisfactory in the case under consideration. What the hon. Baronet appeared to desire did not seem to him (Lord J. Manners) of the slightest practical importance. The main delivery of letters at Wick and Thurso must still take place early in the morning, and the increased cost to the public would be of no advantage to those towns. The only result would be the payment of a very considerable subsidy for a special mail service. The Postal Department was of opinion that the circumstances were not such as would justify such a payment, especially as without it the mail service could be conducted with regularity and efficiency.

SIR TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIR

said, the Postmaster General had not informed the House by what means the Sunday mails were to be conveyed. As a director of the Highland, Sutherland, and Caithness Railway, he could state that his brother directors were determined that no train should run on Sundays.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, he must leave the hon. Baronet and his colleagues to settle that question with the Company.